Return to roots (2004-2010) Despite many fans' misgivings about the feel of Heritage of Kings, it was a commercial success, outselling The Settlers IV. For their next two titles, Blue Byte looked back rather than forward, releasing two new versions of The Settlers II; a remake, The Settlers II (10th Anniversary), was released for Windows in 2006 and The Settlers DS, a 1:1 port for Nintendo DS, was released in 2007. Speaking prior to the release of 10th Anniversary, Ubisoft's business development director, Ralf Wirsing, attempted to put the overall franchise into context: In an October 2006 press release, Ubisoft explained that for the next entry in the main series, The Settlers: Rise of an Empire, the designers had been working to identify "the Settler gene"; that quintessential component or components which make the Settlers series unique. Grindel explained that the design philosophy behind the game was "to understand the Settlers series in its entirety", whilst co-designer Andreas Suika said that "we're taking something from all the Settlers parts, and making the best Settlers there can be". At Ubisoft's Ubidays event in July 2007, Grindel reiterated: "We really wanted to grab the essence of what people like about the different games, to make one Settlers game that really summarises what the series is about". Blue Byte made sure to address the reaction to Heritage of Kings, assuring fans that Rise would be a very different type of game. Suika stated, "if you look at Heritage of Kings, and develop the series consistently from that point, we would have a pure RTS with no economy. And we don't want that. There are many people who say there was too much fighting in Settlers 5, and we agree. We want to reduce this in favour of economic-based gameplay". On the same subject, Grindel opined, "we strayed too far from the basic concept of The Settlers". Hoping to rectify this with Rise of an Empire, he explained that, for the first time in the series, combat is "not the ultimate goal of each map". The next release in the series was Die Siedler: Aufbruch der Kulturen, a 2008 German-only spiritual successor to 10th Anniversary featuring very similar gameplay. Speaking prior to its release, Ronald Kaulbach, Ubisoft's International Brand Manager spoke about that project: Developed by Gameloft, the next entry in the franchise was The Settlers HD, a 2009 handheld remake of The Settlers