Blue Byte Software's beloved city builder The Settlers II is finally being released on the Amiga later this year, almost 30 years after skipping the platform.
The Settlers series originally began on the Amiga, with the release of 1993's The Settlers. However, when it came time to make the sequel, the popularity of the Amiga was in decline, leading Blue Byte to develop the follow-up for MS-DOS computers instead. Because of this, Amiga fans were never able to experience the follow-up on the original machine that had birthed the franchise, instead having to pick up another platform if they wanted to see where the developer had taken the popular series next.
Now, though, 29 years after the original release of Settlers II in 1996, a German company called Look Behind You has made a deal with Ubisoft to bring a new version of the game to Amiga computers, to bring the game back to the console where the series first began.
The Settlers II: Gold Edition will be released on October 18th, 2025, and isn't simply a port of the PC original, but is instead described as a "lovingly optimized version that shows what the Amiga is really capable of." It requires an Amiga with an AGA chipset and a 68040 processor running at 40 MHz, with an additional graphics card recommended to get the most out of the game, and will also run on "PowerPC Amigas with AmigaOS 4.1 or AmigaOS 3.1 with WarpUP".
It is available to order now from Look Behind You's website and is being offered in three different versions: a digital edition (€29.90), standard box edition (€49.90), and a collector's edition (€99.90).
"Our goal wasn't just to prove that porting The Settlers was technically possible," Steffen Häuser, the developer of the Amiga version, said in a press statement. "We wanted to make its unique gaming experience available on the Amiga as well — exactly as it should have been in 1996."
Meanwhile, Kay Bennemann, the senior business developer at Ubisoft Blue Byte, said, "Blue Byte's history was made by The Settlers, which was not only a milestone for the company, but also shaped an entire genre. City-building strategy games at this level were a minor revolution in the early 1990s—and the second installment cemented this reputation even further.
"We are delighted and honoured that The Settlers II Gold Edition will finally be released on the Amiga for the first time, decades later. This project not only pays tribute to the series, but also to the passion of its community that has kept it alive to this day."
Versions of the game are scheduled to be playable on a 68k Amiga, and on a PowerPC Amiga at Gamescom, in Cologne, Germany, later this month (August 20th to 24th), and will be located at the Look Behind You booth, situated in the Retro Area. You can find out more information here.