The Industrial Revolution

After the futuristic approach of Anno 2205, Anno 1800 goes back to an older setting. Taking place in the 19^th century, the Industrial Revolution is beginning to take shape. Players will introduce new amenities for their citizens, manage aspects like tourism and even attempt to explore new lands. Depending on their outlook, they can work towards industrializing endlessly or becoming a hero the people. Gameplay-wise, it may not sound different but the era brings much more nuance to fans than before.

Three Different Modes

Anno 1800 is divided into three modes – campaign, multiplayer and sandbox. We’ll get into the essentials of multiplayer later but the campaign should satisfy your urge for expansion and conquering while also exploring the Industrial Revolution’s many important events. Sandbox mode is expected to let you launch custom games with different parameters for opponents, resource costs and whatnot.

All The Series’ Hits

While Anno 2205 wasn’t outright terrible per say, there were complaints about the overall complexity of the experience. Blue Byte has been listening and collected all the key aspects of the series into Anno 1800’s gameplay systems. Randomly generated maps, the return of Trade Routes, individual AI opponents, and much more are being included this time around. Any feature you enjoyed from previous releases has most likely returned in some form here.

Custom Matches and Quick Matches

Up to four players can play together in multiplayer, forging an alliance for prosperity or racing to defeat each other in terms of expansion. If there aren’t enough human players, then AI bots can fill any empty slots. All of the game’s features are supported in multiplayer, including the trip to The New World and you can create custom games with a wide range of settings before inviting friends to play. If you want to quickly jump into a multiplayer session, then Quick Match will find you any existing games though it also depends on how many players you want to go against.

Multisession Gameplay

Introduced in Anno 2205, multisession gameplay offers the ability to connect with various worlds or “sessions” at once. This allows for benefits like trading goods between sessions. Anno 1800 will see the return of multisession gameplay but with some welcome changes. You don’t have to settle in other sessions in order to advance further. Players will still have the freedom to explore new sessions early on but if you want to spend time building up your own world and settle somewhere else later on, that’s also possible. Furthermore, combat has been moved back to one’s main session and will no longer take place in “special” sessions.

Blueprint Mode

Among the many new features in Anno 1800 is the Blueprint Mode and it’s pretty ingenuous. It allows you to lay down different silhouettes of buildings ahead of time. This lets you see how well the building would fit and you don’t have to spend any resources in the process. Furthermore, the blueprinted building will remain until you have the sufficient resources to construct it. It’s a great new addition that takes care of a lot of the trial-and-error involved in building.

City Attractiveness

City Attractiveness is another key part of the experiences and determines, based on criteria like Culture, Nature and Festivity, just how beautiful your island is. It also influences tourism, which can generate additional income. Tourists will flock to your island with festivals and fairs going on but may take issue with instability, pollution and illness.

Electricity

What Industrial Revolution would be complete without electricity? Upon hitting the fourth residential tier, you can start building power plants and massively increase productivity. Electricity will also increase the output of older buildings though they must be within the same radius as the power plant and actually benefit from it (so pig farms will not, in fact, perform better). Of course, you’ll also be Wrangling fossil fuels for power plants while finding ways to transport that fuel across the city in an efficient manner.

Balance

Focusing on the positive aspects of City Attractiveness is important but you need to effectively balance between industrialization and natural beauty. Beautifying one’s city is fine and all but sometimes you need to stay a step ahead of the competition and forgo Culture for Inelegance. It’s an interesting struggle that has its own pay-offs and consequences especially as it relates to your citizens’ Happiness.

Happiness Tab

Anno 1800 does a lot with its workforce tiers and residence tiers, ensuring more buildings open up while still making lower tier workers important in the grand scheme of things. The Happiness Tab will determine just how approving your citizens are – keep it high and more taxes will be paid, providing more income in the process. If you want to exploit the citizenry for your own gain, then go ahead. You don’t even need to worry about keeping them happy to advance either. Of course, important rewards and quests could be missed in the process. Plus you don’t want a disgruntled citizenry when it’s war time.

City Incidents

Three separate City Incidents threaten to destabilize control at any time – Riots, Fires and Illness. Fires can break out depending on the workshops and factories built. Pushing for increased productivity could also result in fires. Riots can happen if the general populace isn’t happy or if your workers aren’t satisfied with their conditions. Finally, illness can occur if there’s too much pollution or poor working conditions, resulting in families staying home (and thus decreasing the amount of taxes and workers). Players will have the chance to increase or decrease the likeliness of such incidents occurring before beginning a game though they can’t be fully disabled.

Newspaper

The Newspaper is a good way to manipulate public opinion and Happiness in your favour. It’s essentially a collection of your triumphs and blunders, offering a good look at what’s going right and what could possibly become a problem. Using influence to shape the Newspaper is a double-edged sword – it can rally the people during war but too much propaganda could lead to riots. Different sections of society will react differently though as will third party characters you meet so it’s a complex web of truthiness to manage.

The New World

Classified as the second major part of the game, The New World is a completely separate archipelago with its own resources that can only be accessed by ships. Resources like gold, and cotton lay in wait along with new characters, new residential tiers and much more. It will even fit seamlessly with the multisession system as you compete against your Old World rivals for expansion and trading valuable goods.

Trade Routes and Charter Routes

Charter Routes from Anno 2205 are returning, offering a simple but ultimately more limited means of transporting goods since only one good type can be traded at a time. It’s also more expensive though ultimately time-efficient for those who need goods shipped ASAP. Trade Routes, on the other hand, are the more classic way of trading. They let you decide stations and goods to transport along with using numerous ships. The downside is that your captains may encounter routes with unfavourable conditions or pirates roaming about. Setting waypoints, assigning guards and engaging in naval warfare, are important for a solid Trade Route system.

Ornaments

City Attractiveness and tourism are important factors to keep in mind when building. Anno 1800 helps accentuate the beauty of one’s island with Ornaments which range from statues, city stands and fences to hedge mazes and fountains. Ornament sizes range from 1 by 1 tile up to 3 by 3 tiles and depending on how attractive your city is, different specialists will start to arrive via the harbour. There are hundreds of Ornaments to play around and customize your city with, lending a nice end-game diversion to the mix.

Ubisoft’s city building strategy simulator Anno 1800 is almost here, and ahead of its looming launch, the game’s minimum and recommended system requirements have been revealed, thanks to said information going live on the game’s page on the Epic Games Store. Pleasantly enough, it doesn’t look too demanding. 

Minimum requirements to play the game need you to have an 8 GB RAM, along with either a 3.2 GHz Intel i5-4460 CPU, or a 3.1 GHz AMD Ryzen3 1200. To go along with that, you’ll also need either an Nvidia GTX 670 – 2GB, or an AMD Radeon R9 270X – 2GB. If you want to hit recommended settings, though, you’ll need either an Intel i5-4690K – 3.5 GHz, or an AMD Ryzen5 1500X – 3.5 GHz, along with either an Nvidia GTX 970 – 4GB, or an AMD Radeon R9 290X – 4GB. Check out the full requirements below.

Anno 1800 launches on April 16, with users getting a chance to participate in an open beta for two days prior to its release. The game will launch for Uplay and the Epic Games Store, though Steam users won’t be left out to dry either- read more about that through here. 

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

• 8 GB RAM
• CPU: Intel i5-4460 – 3.2 Ghz, AMD Ryzen3 1200 – 3.1 Ghz
• GPU: Nvidia GTX 670 – 2GB, AMD Radeon R9 270X – 2GB

RECOMMENDED REQUIREMENTS:

• 8 GB RAM
• Intel i5-4690K – 3.5 Ghz, AMD Ryzen5 1500X – 3.5 Ghz 
• Nvidia GTX 970 – 4GB, AMD Radeon R9 290X – 4GB

Ubisoft has announced that its upcoming city-builder Anno 1800 will be available on the Epic Games Store and Ubisoft Store right after launch. An open beta will be available from April 12th to 14th on both storefronts for anyone who wants to try the release before picking it up on April 16th. Steam users aren’t being left out to dry though.

Those who pre-ordered the game on Steam will still receive a copy on that platformer along with all future updates and content releases. It won’t be removed from your Steam library after April 16th and can be launched through it. Steam users will also receive updates and future content at the same time as those on Uplay and the Epic Games Store.

Furthermore, you can still play online with those who buy the game through the Epic Games Store. Both platforms require Uplay for multiplayer regardless. And no, this isn’t a sign that previous Anno games are being removed from Steam… at least for the moment. As Ubisoft notes, “There are currently no plans to remove any of the previous Anno games from Steam’s storefront.”

Anno 1800 will be coming to PC on April 16th. Head here to read a couple of things you should know before picking it up.

Anno 1800 is styled after old-school 4X games, but it still contains modern additions that help reduce the tedium that these games sometimes fall victim to. With so many games in the 4X genre, Anno really needs to have a different flavor in order to stand out. Fortunately, it does just that, and while it’s not perfect yet, it’s definitely heading in the right direction.

"With so many games in the 4X genre, Anno really needs to have a different flavor in order to stand out. Fortunately, it does just that and while it’s not perfect yet, it’s definitely heading in the right direction."

When looking at Anno 1800’s gameplay, it’s pretty standard fare for 4X games. You land in a certain spot, then use the natural resources around you to start a community. You have tons of buildings and trades available to you, from lumber-cutting to sausage-crafting. You’ll have to settle farmers and give them tasks as well as diversions with buildings like pubs and churches. Your population’s happiness also has to be taken into account. You’re given options to reduce or increase the workload they have as well. The higher that goes, the more product you’ll have, but the less happy your townsfolk will be. When they’re the most satisfied they can be, you can upgrade them into workers, and that opens up new buildings you can make.

This is all what you would expect from a 4X game, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. Anno 1800 has great presentation, and provides you with new things to learn at a pretty steady pace. I was never stuck in a certain section just waiting for enough money to accumulate or enough resources to get farmed. The initial couple hours I spent with Anno, learning the ins-and-outs of the world, were some of the most fun I had with the title.

There is a tutorial for newcomers, and it’s helpfully integrated into the experience. So instead of sitting you in a practice arena and having you jump through hoops for fifteen minutes, the tutorial prompts present themselves as quests that you need to accomplish while you’re actually creating your community. This allows players to use it for however long they need and then seamlessly turn the messages off with no loss in progress. This is a great addition, but in its current form, it’s pretty minimal. Though an effort to teach players the rules of the game is appreciated, I feel like the studio can go much further. An encyclopaedia of gameplay mechanics that the player can tab through menus to find would be much appreciated. Even with the tutorial, there are just too many buildings, trades, and gameplay mechanics to dip into that aren’t covered. Having all that information in one place for easy consumption would go a long way to giving players all the tools they need to have a fun time in Anno.

"The initial couple hours I spent with Anno, learning the ins-and-outs of the world, were some of the most fun I had with the title."

It wasn’t too long before I could start diving into the tasty new features this title has to offer. New to Anno 1800 are the Zoo and Museum buildings. These are just simple cultural diversions for your citizens, but they open up interesting expeditions where you venture out into the world in order to find new animals and artefacts for your buildings. Collecting as many things as you can is interesting- it ended up tapping into that completionist streak in me. It also adds a unique use for your ship.

Even more so than in other 4X games, the ship is an integral part of your experience. Not only will you find new islands and new resources all over the world, but you’ll also need to send your ship out in order to trade with other players.  The expeditions that I mentioned before are a great addition to Anno. You select your crew and supplies and send a ship out to explore. You’ll be given some text describing your crew’s situation, and you’ll be presented with choices based on the trouble your expedition team has found itself in. Sending a team out only to have members of the crew fall in love with an indigenous people puts you in a hard place; do you tear apart lovers and bring back the loot? Do you try and convince the tribe’s king that you should take the people back to your city? It’s really interesting seeing the turns these expeditions can take.

The ships also tie into Anno 1800 in one other way: combat. Naval combat is your only combat option in this title. This turns out to be a good decision for the game, since you don’t have to concern yourself with the tedium and distraction of training units that are only suitable for war. Aside from ships, you can build guns to protect your coastline and leave the fighting out on the seas. Fighting is not a huge focus in Anno 1800, with the majority of effort being focused on the community-building. As such, while combat is fine for what it is, it’s not going to be the thing that keeps you engaged in Anno. There are also some issues with the pathfinding of ships right now, with them sometimes being unable to decide where to go, but this happens pretty infrequently.

"Fighting is not a huge focus in Anno 1800, with the majority of effort being focused on the community-building. As such, while combat is fine for what it is, it’s not going to be the thing that keeps you engaged in Anno."

While you play, you’ll either run into other players, or they’ll stumble upon you. With the easy-to-use interface, you can interact with these folk, though your interactions are fairly limited. You can compliment them for a bit of a boost in your relationship, or you can lob an insult their way to intentionally sour relations. You can also offer gifts to people you’ve met or accept quests from them. The quest system is shaping up to be a fun one, giving you tasks you need to work at in order to improve relations, instead of solely relying on bribes to keep opponents appeased.

So far, Anno 1800 is shaping up to be a really a good-looking title too. Everything has a pleasant and warm color scheme. The details given to buildings are pretty impressive as well. Seeing people scurrying about your city and chattering amongst themselves makes your community really seem lived in. There’s also a beautiful soundtrack that plays in the background that thankfully doesn’t get on your nerves over long stretches of playing. UI and presentation is also pretty clean and streamlined. Many of your most valuable tools are easily accessible from the bar menu at the bottom of the screen, and it helps to not clutter up the beautiful vistas with pop-up menus.

Now, since this is a early version of the game, it shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that there are a few technical issues present. One of the biggest problems that I constantly struggled with was with the overload mechanic. From the very beginning of my play sessions, carts that are supposed to take your goods from the farms and trade buildings wouldn’t ever arrive where they needed to. No matter where I moved the building, the cart just would not leave to bring goods to the warehouse. I also found myself saddled with the quick-menu prompt constantly on my screen. Even when I unlocked it and tried moving it somewhere else, I could never fully get rid of the icon. The team are aware of a few issues in the game, and did make a note to say that they were working on ironing out the kinks before the full release.

"Since this is a early version of the game, it shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that there are a few technical issues present."

Anno 1800 is a great time so far. During my time with the game, I was having a lot of fun learning and functioning within the game’s world. Like I said before, building up at the beginning is the most exciting part so far, but Anno 1800 is doing a lot else to keep you invested following that as well. It also looks like it’ll have unique properties that help set it apart from the Civilization titles, the Endless games, and all the other 4X experiences out there- at least when the game works the way it’s supposed to. Personally, I’m hopeful that when Anno 1800 finally releases later on this year, the bugs and balance issues won’t be along for the ride.

Blue Byte has finally dated the closed beta period for Anno 1800, it’s city-building opus that takes place during the Industrial Revolution. Unfortunately, it seems that the main game has been delayed in the process. Instead of February, Anno 1800 will now be releasing on April 16th.

Still, the closed beta starts on January 31st, and will be available till February 4th on PC. Sign up today and maybe you’ll be one of the lucky few selected. Regarding the delay, Blue Byte community developer Bastian Thun said, “We are very happy with where the game and its wide mix of new and classic features are today, but we know that it can be even better with a little additional polish and tuning. These extra weeks will allow us to deliver a game that fully lives up to its potential.”

More information about the campaign and multiplayer will be coming in the next few weeks. Thun also teased the game’s post-launch support, noting that the development team had some “cool ideas” for the future.  “The Anno 1800 journey won’t end at launch. We will share more details closer to April 16th but can assure that we have some cool ideas for future post-launch content for the game.”

Check out the trailer for the closed beta below. Along with building cities, players will also indulge in tourism and “blue-printing”. We’re unsure if the latter is meant to focus on reproducing technical drawings using contact presses or not. Stay tuned for more details regardless.

Blue Byte’s Anno 1800 – the newest iteration in the series that focuses on trading, industrialization, and more during the Industrial Revolution – hasn’t received a ton of information this year. However, development is going smoothly, with Ubisoft announcing a large technical test that will take place before November ends. Over on Twitter, Blue Byte community developer Bastian Thun said that the technical test is “getting real pretty soon.”

In a more detailed post, Thun noted that the technical test restricts players to Citizen Tiers 1-3. The full campaign also isn’t playable, and there are some things in the game that, “will (and sometimes should!) break.” However, Thun further stated, “This test is intended to give us valuable insights into topics like balance and game performance. It won’t be representative of the final polished game you will be able to enjoy next year (and which will be even better thanks to all of you helping us with this test).”

Participants will be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement that prevents any kind of discussion out of official forums. Content like screenshots and videos also can’t be shared. If you want to sign up for the technical test, head here. Anno 1800 will release on February 26^th, 2019 for PC. System requirements for the test can be seen below, though keep in mind that they don’t represent the final game’s specs:

Minimum:

• CPU: Intel i5 3470 or AMD FX 6350
• RAM: 8 GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce 670 GTX or AMD Radeon R9 285
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (all 64-bit)
• Hard Drive: 26 GB

Recommended:

• CPU: Intel i5 4690k or AMD Ryzen 5 1400
• RAM: 8 GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce 970 GTX or AMD Radeon RX 480
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (all 64-bit)
• Hard Drive: ca. 50 GB

https://twitter.com/BastianThun/status/1065902140235964416

Blue Byte’s Anno 1800 reappeared at Gamescom 2018 as its publisher Ubisoft released a new trailer, and finally offered a release date. Unfortunately, the city-building strategy game won’t be out this year, but it is coming on February 26th, 2019. Check out the new trailer to see some fresh fairly good-looking gameplay.

Anno 1800 takes a step back from the many futuristic titles in the franchise, venturing into the Industrial Revolution. Players can choose a variety of different approaches, though the impetus is still on building and expanding your city. To that effect, you can have expeditions where a crew of specialists will travel the world for adventure.

They’ll essentially complete quests on their own and probably discover some rare treasures while you continue your conquest. A story campaign is provided in the game, but players can mess about in sandbox mode as well, and also hop online for multiplayer. Multi-session play is returning, and randomly generated maps will help keep the action fresh, too.

Blue Byte is back again with another Anno title. Only this time, instead of heading into the future like Anno 2205, Anno 1800 will return to the past at the “dawn of the Industrial Age” to focus on trade, warfare and diplomacy.

Though MCV broke the news on Twitter, Ubisoft released an official trailer for the game. This can be seen below and it showcases an expansive 19th century city that’s bustling with activity. Like previous games, establishing your city and turning it into a thriving hub of trade and diplomacy will be necessary for success. How will the Industrial Age motif play a part? That’s the question on our minds.

Ubisoft is currently hosting a community project called Anno Union for users to vote for which NPC they’d like to have in the game. You can head here and cast your vote. Who knows? The Mobster could have his day.

No release date was provided for Anno 1800 but it will likely head to PC first.

Exclusive: Ubisoft's new title is Anno 1800. pic.twitter.com/LCndOdTWDs

— MCV/DEVELOP (@MCV_DEVELOP) August 22, 2017

"The voice acting and overall light-hearted nature of the script aid in this and it’s good to see that the game doesn’t take itself too serious."

From the outset, Champions of Anteria seems charming. You’ll have five different Champions, each specializing in a different element (Water, Fire, Lightning and so on) as they attempt to take down an evil wizard named Kalen Daark. Said wizard also has an army of the undead and, as if the name wasn’t indicative enough, he isn’t willing to negotiate peace terms. On the one hand, you’re attempting to deal with the conflicts raging across the kingdom’s various clans. On the other, you’re beset with a fairly clichéd villain.

Thankfully, Champions of Anteria offsets this with interesting and humorous characterization. The voice acting and overall light-hearted nature of the script aid in this and it’s good to see that the game doesn’t take itself too serious. If only some of that humour actually extended to the gameplay mechanics and missions rather than being constrained to the cut scenes, which are still fairly good looking with their art.

When venturing forth into missions, you’ll choose from three of the five Champions. Each element will have a corresponding element that it’s strong against and weak against while each Champion has unique abilities and can unlock more over time. Vargus the warrior, Anslem the mage and Nusala the rogue will start out the party and you’ll engage in MOBA-esque battles for dominance. However, the strategy portion comes up when you must upgrade your kingdom and decide which neighbouring lands to assault. Combat is real-time but you can still pause the action to issue orders.

"Despite the 4X-like demeanour of expansion, Champions of Anteria is satisfied to throw a few upgrades at you, cosmetically enhance some areas and units and call it a day."

Once a “raid” has been decided upon, you’re off to engage against waves of foes and eventually beat down a boss in order to succeed. Meanwhile, other factions may be assaulting your kingdom or amassing resources to become a nuisance. On the surface, it seems like you’ll have to strategically plan out your expansion, which is fine.

In practice, Champions of Anteria has a hard time really nailing what it wants to be. Aside from the raids, the missions themselves have some decent variety and additional objectives to finish. However, combat is fairly dodgy. Tending to your units is expected, especially if you want to unlock further abilities (though the various research trees for upgrades don’t feel especially unique from each other) but you’ll need to constantly spam abilities. Queuing up different commands would have made things a whole lot less tedious but unfortunately, it can be fairly unreliable. Navigate to Champion, click away and navigate to the next. At least you’ll be doing something.

That’s especially so when fighting against the surprisingly poor enemy AI. Enemies will often lap your units or take the long way around to attack them thanks to poor path-finding. Unfortunately, these issues plague your Champions as well and battles can quickly become a mess of uncoordinated attacks. One could focus too much on not battling but there isn’t a whole lot of complexity when tending to your kingdom. Despite the 4X-like demeanour of expansion, Champions of Anteria is satisfied to throw a few upgrades at you, cosmetically enhance some areas and units and call it a day. I don’t expect every strategy game to have the depth of Civilization but Champions of Anteria could have done a lot more to dispel the otherwise tedious aspects of combat. Also, why include these elements if so little is going to be done with them?

"The graphics are beautiful enough if fairly uninspired so there is some redeeming quality to the experience."

The raids could’ve made combat more interesting and to be fair, each boss has their own unique challenge. However, they take place on pretty much the same maps with the same boring enemy types. Champions of Anteria doesn’t offer enough complexity to succeed as a kingdom-building simulator nor does it embrace its MOBA aspects enough to implement more solid hacking and slashing. It feels like its stuck between two different mediums but if it focused on a particular genre, there wouldn’t be enough to cater to hardcore fans.

The uninspired nature extends to the art style and music with its obvious Warcraft similarities. The graphics are beautiful enough so there is some redeeming quality to the experience. As a whole, the strategy/MOBA hybrid of gameplay felt like it could have been fun even with far better options on the market. Lack of polish, terrible AI and pathfinding, inconsistent mechanics, inconsequential progression and an overly simplified structure just don’t do the entire experience any favours.

Champions of Anteria is not a terrible game so much as one with a lot of wasted potential. If Blue Byte had bothered to fix some of the more glaring issues, it could have been an average little RTS/MOBA hybrid. As it stands, there are plenty of games that offer so much more in their respective genres and with much better execution.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

There isn’t really much to the game’s “plot”. You’re the leader of a corporation engaged in a technology race with other corporations. Your job is to be more successful and thus…get the most money? There aren’t a whole lot of long-term dividends for why you’re doing exactly what you’re doing in Anno 2205 from a plot standpoint. It all becomes clearer later but for now, you’re not exactly furthering mankind’s triumphs among the stars. Well, not the majority of mankind anyway.

"While most city-builders can function well on maintaining the eco-system that the player creates, a decent end-game in a campaign like Anno 2205 is to be expected…and it sadly doesn’t deliver."

Anno 2205 starts off on Earth as you begin to build houses and plan cities, create power stations and gather minerals and resources, keep your citizens employed and happy and provide ample food and water for their needs. Your citizens begin as low-class wage-earners but can quickly progress up the social ladder to the rank of Operator. This leads to more income for you as you quickly build towards the Arctic. The uniqueness of the area starts to create some diversity in Anno 2205’s challenges – heat is a necessity and you need to keep your citizens close to maximize productivity. Later on, you’ll be taking your city-building exploits to the moon, mining its rare materials to further your research and development back on Earth. Once again, this presents its own challenges. Meteor showers can often disrupt operations on the moon’s surface which means you’ll need to build shields to protect your interests.

As the game wears on, a neat little ecosystem forms between the three habitats you’ve cultivated. Resource from each “city” feeds into the other, making a well-oiled relationship between their machinations important. The problem is that you don’t really feel much of a threat from anyone as you advance further and further into the game. Rival companies will do little more than bribe you for various reasons and by the time you’ve advanced to the lunar stage, they become fairly insignificant to the grand scheme of things. While most city-builders can function well on maintaining the eco-system that the player creates, a decent end-game in a campaign like Anno 2205 is to be expected…and it sadly doesn’t deliver.

It would also help if the end-game were little more than trying to satisfy the big-wig executives you gain throughout. As your Operators progress to Executives and Investors, you’ll receive more income to build and maintain your range of cities. However, you’re essentially stuck trying to cater to their expensive needs with regards to entertainment, gadgets and other luxuries.

"As a building game, Anno 2205 is an intriguing anomaly in the world of gaming. It’s occupied with exploration and satisfying your citizenry, thus converting them into useful resources, as it is with building and expanding."

On the one hand, it does diverge a bit from the established formula of other city builders. On the other hand, by the end of the game, there isn’t much else to do but to cater to the elite one-percenters and their exuberant demands. If this led to some interesting little hallmarks or achievements that were tangible, it would be one thing. Anno 2205’s Investors are little more than a few extra numbers to your bank balance. It doesn’t exactly scream “magnificence” and “awe” to the builder in me.

That being said, the cities themselves look really good. Earth itself maintains a futuristic, clean-cut but still modern architecture that’s interesting to behold at times. Similarly, the Arctic and Moon locations look distinct by themselves and really help in crafting the illusion of three different cities being managed as opposed to the various branches of a main city. That being said, the various buildings could have used some distinction from each other. It may be tough to tell the differences between factories and housings at times. Also oddly enough, Anno 2205 has some rather sluggish performance on higher settings. Even when dialing things down on my configuration – which is an Intel Core i5 with 8 GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 – I still encountered slowdown and some choppy frames every now and again. This didn’t exactly fill my heart with glee, especially considering Ubisoft’s horrible performance with Might and Magic Heroes 7.

As a building game, Anno 2205 is an intriguing anomaly in the world of gaming. It’s occupied with exploration and satisfying your citizenry, thus converting them into useful resources, as it is with building and expanding. However, it doesn’t feel like its reach is extending its grasp when it comes to the scope and scale of the story and end-game (and it doesn’t have the mod support or complexity of Cities: Skylines either, though there will be Season Pass content in the coming months). Couple this with odd performance even on decent hardware and Anno 2205 sticks out as an oddity in many ways. It’s not a terrible release at all – in fact, it may just provide several dozens of hours of entertainment. Just remember that there’s very little to go back to once your dominion over Earth and space has been complete, unless you’re fine with catering to the elite the rest of your existence.

This game was reviewed on the PC.