Today Ubisoft announced the development of The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom, the next iteration in the popular multi-million selling strategy game franchise for PC. Scheduled for release in spring 2010, The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom gives gamers the opportunity to choose the best way to lead their kingdom to victory, in a rich environment set in middle-Europe during the early Renaissance.

“The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom brings The Settlers franchise to a new level in the strategy-game genre, relying on the key mechanisms that made the series a success while innovating and giving the gamers the opportunity to build their own thrilling experience.” said John Parkes, Marketing Director EMEA at Ubisoft

Developed by the Ubisoft Blue Byte studio located in Düsseldorf, Germany, The Settlers 7: Paths to a KingdomTM ties in with the tradition of the series success while bringing a fresh, modern and innovative strategy game, based on strong game mechanics and deep gameplay that are hallmarks of the highly acclaimed Settlers franchise. Players will easily become engaged in an exciting campaign, skirmish maps or multi-player challenges in a world of lush forests, open meadows, fast flowing rivers, and high mountains.

The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom main features:

• Rich gameplay mechanics: The deep building and production systems both allow gamers to expand their kingdom village by village, sector by sector, optimizing their creation by fine-tuning production chains and transport systems.
• Variety of gameplay: Gamers will be able to choose the best path to lead their kingdom to victory around three main pillars:
• Military: by building strong armies and defeating opponents with shear military power.
• Science: by increasing their influence in the monasteries, gamers will be able to have access to the most beneficial technologies.
• Trade: by occupying the best trade routes to become the wealthiest player on the map.

Depending on each style of play, gamers will be able to unlock a variation of new and unique possibilities, changing the way they build their own kingdom.

• An innovative victory system: new victory point system brings more tension and competition to the game. Victory points are awarded in many different ways depending on the choices gamers make throughout the evolution of their kingdom.

• Online Multiplayer: gamers will be able to play online and face opponents in classic adversarial and co-op teamplay modes. Online features include user-generated and downloadable content, in-game feeds, and various leaderboards.

• A new graphic engine and improved AI: A brand-new graphic engine will let gamers experience the beauty of their kingdom in a never-seen-before level of detail and more than a dozen AI profiles, each with unique behaviors, will add enhanced variety to the game like never before.

Make sure you visit the official website, www.thesettlers.com and find out more info on The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom. Wow that is an impressive run of titles for the franchise.