Last Friday, our beloved editor Speed was (mockingly) asking the question why Ubisoft found it necessary to release screenshots of 'a guy' who also appears in the trailer released together with the shots.

Little did our readers know that Speed was already drunk at the time which disabled his reading skills and also messed up his facial recognition software so he missed the fact that 'the guy' in the shots was actually Bruce Shelley co-founder of Ensemble Studio's and creator of the Age of Empires series.

Ubi has now clarified that Shelley is actually just consulting on the design of the gameplay, possibly in an attempt to make it appeal more to the US market.

Since Microsoft shut down Ensemble in September of last year, Shelley had been rather silent about his new endeavours. Many Age of Empires fans were hoping that the man would start over again creating a new game in the style and tradition of the first two Age of Empires games. They will have to wait some more for this to happen it seems.

The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom is currently in closed beta scheduled for a release somewhere in March. Stay tuned for a hands-on once the NDA gets lifted.

In other news: