200? Ubisoft / Hyperion
Platform: Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Next into the archives is news of a very interesting conversion of The Settlers which got surprisingly close to completion before being abruptly cancelled. The game was being developed for Ubisoft at Hyperion by a small team based in Leeds, including veteran artist Simon Butler and programmer Phillip “TAG” Taglione.
Simon first highlighted the game to Games That Weren’t in 2025, recalling it as a “smashing little project” that the team thoroughly enjoyed working on. There were only around three or four people working together in a tiny room in Leeds, including another artist whose name Simon unfortunately can no longer recall.
Simon was responsible for creating sprites for the game and thankfully still has some of his graphical work today. We hope to add a selection of those surviving assets to this page in the future, which should at least provide a glimpse of how this lost handheld conversion was shaping up.
Unfortunately, very little is currently known about the game itself or how The Settlers had been adapted for Nintendo’s handheld. What we do know is that development had progressed a long way before cancellation. Simon recalls that the game was fairly close to completion, estimating that perhaps only another month or two of development remained.
The team themselves were not told why the project was cancelled. Everything had apparently been progressing well until one day a telephone call came through and that was it. Development was stopped immediately, much to the frustration of everyone involved.
“We had maybe a month or two more before we were finished, but one day there was a call and that was it, game cancelled,” Simon recalled to GTW.
Simon remembers the cancellation being particularly disappointing because the small team worked well together and genuinely enjoyed what they were creating.
When it comes to learning more about the game – sadly, programmer Phillip “TAG” Taglione passed away in 2019. Given Simon’s recollection that the game was perhaps only a month or two away from completion, there must once have been a substantial playable build. Whether anything still survives today is another question.
It would be amazing to see something of The Settlers again one day, not only to discover how this unusual Game Boy Advance conversion was shaping up, but also to help preserve and celebrate some of Phillip’s work. If you worked on the game, know who the other members of the small Hyperion team were, or perhaps have any surviving materials or builds, please do get in touch.
With a huge thank you to Simon Butler for highlighting the game, sharing his memories and preserving some of his original graphical work (to be added soon).
