The Ubisoft Mainz-developed city-builder ranked second in sales for the week of November 11th to 18th, according to SteamDB on Twitter. Embark Studios’ ARC Raiders took the top spot (as expected) while Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 launched in third place. Granted, it’s above Battlefield 6, which is in fourth, but that’s already more than a month old.

Whether intentional or not, Ubisoft has released an accolades trailer for Anno 117: Pax Romana, highlighting its critical acclaim. On Metacritic, it has an 85 Metascore on PC based on 57 reviews. Check out our review, where we gave it an eight out of ten for its excellent visuals, smoother early game and great setting (even if it isn’t used to the fullest extent).

Of course, there’s even more content on the way as part of its Year 1 DLC, from a Coliseum to a new Province. Head here for more details.

The latest in the franchise – Anno 117: Pax Romana – is the farthest back in time that the series has gone so far, focusing on the height of the Roman Empire. While this might sound like a superficial aspect of the title, the setting for each Anno game has always had a deep impact on its gameplay. Much of the franchise revolves around establishing and managing supply chains and trade to ensure that your citizens are happy, employed, and have just about everything they need to prosper.

"Much like previous entries, the early hours of the campaign serves as a long tutorial with a narrative framework that introduces new gameplay concepts at a gradual pace."

The supply chains are a great example of just how much the change in setting is more than superficial. Whereas Anno 1800 revolved more around the Industrial Revolution, with players setting up everything that an epic factory or three would need, Anno 117: Pax Romana instead has smaller-scale supply chains, especially at the beginning. You’re not going to be leaving your starting island in search of new resources as quickly as you did in the previous title. Instead, the focus is on agriculture and small-scale industry, i.e. setting up bakeries and the facilities needed to create pots out of clay. Not to say that things don’t quickly surge in complexity, but Anno 117‘s gradual introduction to its mechanics ensures a smooth learning curve.

Much like previous entries, the early hours of the campaign serves as a long tutorial with a narrative framework that introduces new gameplay concepts at a gradual pace. You start by picking your character and joining a major Senatorial family, and then getting tasked with building out a new settlement on an island ravaged by a volcanic eruption. You’ll start small, learning how to build houses and upgrade them to attract different kinds of citizens before delving into producing necessities like food and clothing to ensure that your citizens are as happy and productive as possible.

The campaign also has you partaking in some light instances of courtroom and senatorial drama in the Roman Empire, culminating in the player assuming duties over their own house. With that out of the way, we can finally talk about the main attraction of Anno 117: Pax Romana – the sandbox mode, where all the shackles come off and you’re thrown right into the thick of it.

"Anno 117: Pax Romana is the farthest back in time that the series has gone so far, focusing on the height of the Roman Empire."

The 117 AD setting of the game offers interesting challenges, especially for those accustomed to the luxuries of later time periods. Along with providing a glimpse into the daily life of the era, from the various classes of citizens, to how industry and culture evolved, Pax Romana also offers some unique gameplay by tapping into how the Roman Empire dealt with the denizens of some of the lands they had settled. Throughout the campaign and in the sandbox mode, you can build out cities closer to Rome or expand out into islands with settlers. While not much has changed in the typical minute-to-minute city-building and planning gameplay, the Ancient Rome setting does add a few new interesting wrinkles in various forms, ranging from diplomacy to how you go about handling the needs of your citizens, from their desire for higher education and hygiene to even just wanting a communal place to hang out.

However, as grand as these might sound, in broad strokes, they don’t really represent a brand-new frontier for the franchise. In fact, I would go as far as to say that Anno 117: Pax Romana doesn’t tap as deeply into its excellent setting as classic city builders did once upon a time. The arenas you can construct in your city don’t do much more than contribute a few more points towards fulfilling a villager’s need for entertainment. All in all, while there are a few meaningful changes compared to its predecessor, it’s baffling that some of the more interesting aspects of the Roman Empire setting were left on the table (likely for post-launch expansions to pick up the slack).

While trade and industry make up much of the gameplay, there is also the option to form an army and flex your military might over the entire region. You can set up armies of varying sizes and grades, across a variety of weapon types. Military combat in Anno 117: Pax Romana works on a rock-paper-scissors system where spears can defeat cavalry, which in turn can defeat ranged soldiers, who are adept at taking out spearmen. You might even find yourself forming a military without any plans of forceful expansion, since some maps in the sandbox mode have the tendency of throwing raiders at you that can steal your resources, and even destroy your buildings. While it might be quite basic, the military based gameplay does its job well enough. Don’t expect anything as deep as an actual real-time strategy game would offer, however. If soldiers and armies are what you enjoy about the Roman Empire, other games might be more your speed.

Mind you, that’s not to say that Anno 117: Pax Romana doesn’t excel at its main focus, city-building. It offers some excellent refinements over Anno 1800, and visually speaking, you’d have to search far and wide for other games in the same league. Similarly, even the sound design and soundtrack are quite good, immersing you in its world thanks to calming music, the chatter of villagers going about their day, and the sounds of industry coming in from where you might have set down your stone workers and wood cutters.

"Pax Romana also offers some unique gameplay by tapping into how the Roman Empire dealt with the denizens of some of the lands they had settled."

The visuals are especially helped by the fact that Anno 117: Pax Romana runs quite well. On a PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, 32 GB of RAM and an AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU, I was able to get fantastically smooth frame rates that remained well over 60 FPS on average at 1440p, even when things started getting much busier with several active buildings and villagers walking around. The only time I was able to notice any hitches was a few micro stutters when zooming all the way out of the map in an effort to coordinate the exploration missions of my various ships.

Anno 117: Pax Romana offers the most polished and streamlined gameplay in the city-building franchise so far, without sacrificing too much in terms of depth. However, the previous entry is much more feature-complete than this, thanks to its plethora of expansions. Nevertheless, you’re in it for the distinctly Roman flavor and how its nuances impact all these tried-and-true systems. For now, that’s enough, but just like how Rome wasn’t built in a day, Anno 117 has plenty of room to reach its full potential.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Announced roughly a year ago, Anno 117: Pax Romana will take players to the Roman Empire, with players taking on the role of a Governor who is tasked with overseeing the cultural and economic growth of an empire. To do so, players will choose between two paths- that of a rebel or a loyalist, each bringing unique gameplay mechanics and opportunities.

Returning Anno fans will of course find plenty of familiar systems at play, though Ubisoft is also promising a number of iterative changes and improvements, as is the case with each new instalment. Check out the launch trailer below for a glimpse of what the game will have in store.

Anno 117: Pax Romana is due out on November 13 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Stay tuned for more details on the game in the lead up to its release.

It all starts with laying out facilities to gather resources, including lumber, and creating homes for workers. You need to ensure buildings like the market are available to meet your citizens’ needs while keeping their hygiene in mind (read: Don’t set up a pig farm nearby). Players can also establish their own villa to watch over the city.

Trade with neighboring cities opens up, and so too does diplomacy. Building a strong military is necessary when reinforcing ports and dealing with pirates. Eventually, you can venture to Albion, where the Celts reside, and either establish the Roman Empire’s rule or respect their customs.

Anno 117: Pax Romana will launch later this year for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. A livestream is scheduled for May 21st, with the developer revealing more information, so stay tuned.

But that’s not all. A livestream has been announced for May 21st, 8 AM PT. The development team will be on hand to showcase the title, showcase new features, and answer questions live. If that wasn’t enough, Ubisoft Mainz confirmed that future playtests are in the works following the recent Technical Test.

Anno 117: Pax Romana is out later this year for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Players control a Roman provincial governor who builds cities in Latium and Albion. Among its new features include module ships for customizing the number of oars, sails, etc., each with different benefits. Head here for more details.

The campaign of Anno 117: Pax Romana takes place in the eponymous year, and puts players in the shoes of a Roman provincial governor. Under the pressure of their family, players will have to travel to new lands and will end up making hard choices.

The story will revolve around players helping rebuild the Roman empire after a calamitous natural disaster that struck decades ago. Things start going wrong, however, and players will be exiled from the empire. After this, the game revolves around building up a new city from scratch, and figuring out all of its economic needs by managing intricate supply chains.

One of the biggest new features in Anno 117: Pax Romana is the addition of modular ships. Using this feature, players can build and customise their ships to their liking throughout the campaign. These customisations can range from the addition of oars, or even additional sails to take advantage of favourable winds.

Unveiled back in June 2024, Anno 117: Pax Romana is a follow-up to the well-received Anno 1800. Players will get to help build cities in the provinces of Latium and Albion, and there will be quite a bit of emphasis on the game’s story.

Anno 117: Pax Romana is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2025.

Titled Anno 117: Pax Romana, the next instalment in the city building 4X strategy series will take players to 117 AD Rome and put you in the shoes of a governor tasked with building thriving cities in the provinces of Latium and Albion. As is the case with Anno games, you can expect plenty of choices that will impact your progress, a heavy narrative bent, and layered strategy mechanics. Check out the game’s live action announce trailer below.

Anno 117: Pax Romana will launch for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC at some point in 2025.

The console release of Anno 1800 will also be getting a technical test in November, for which players can sign up on the official website. There is no release date announced for Anno 1800 Console Edition yet, but more details about the console release are set to be revealed in 2023.

While no other details have been revealed, it is quite likely that Anno 1800 Console Edition will be released as a bundle along with all of the DLC that has been released for the game so far.

Anno 1800 puts players in charge of an island in the 1800s. Originally released in 2019, Anno 1800 has seen quite a bit of support with the release of a number of expansions throughout its life. The game quickly proved to be the most popular one in the Anno franchise by becoming the fastest selling Anno game shortly after its release.

For more details, check out our review of Anno 1800‘s original release.

In a rather sudden announcement, Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil creator Michel Ancel has moved on from video games. On Instagram, the former director said he was stopping work on video games to “fully focus on my second passion: Wild Life!” Ancel is currently planning to create an open wildlife sanctuary that will be dedicated to “education, nature lover and wild animals.”

As for how this impacts Beyond Good and Evil 2, which Ancel has been trying to get made for years now, and WiLD, he responded, “No worries, since many months now the teams are autonomous and the projects are going super well. Beautiful things to be seen soon.” Beyond Good and Evil 2 senior producer Guillaume Brunier also provided some new details in an update on the game’s development.

Brunier noted that Ancel “hasn’t been directly involved in BG&E2 for some time now, as the team have been hard at work building on top of the solid creative foundation he helped shape. The team’s collective strength has us well on our way to developing a flagship next-generation action-adventure game.”

The development team has passed an “important internal milestone” that offers “hours of gameplay and an incredible level of freedom in a seamless online sandbox, building upon the promise of our tech demos shown at E3.” Ubisoft Paris, which developed Ghost Recon Breakpoint, has been announced as a partner studio with the development team’s size being ramped up.

“Next milestone: We are aiming to share more and show you the game in action sometime next year, once we pass our next internal production milestones,” said Brunier.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 was first announced at E3 2017 with no platforms confirmed. With Brunier mentioning “next-generation,” it could possibly see a release for PS5 and Xbox Series X. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

Blue Byte’s Anno 1800 may be the most recent title in the franchise but who says you can’t go back? To that, Ubisoft has announced Anno History Collection, a compilation of four classic Anno titles along with all of their expansions. The titles in question are Anno 1602, Anno 1503, Anno 1701 and Anno 1404 (aka Dawn of Discovery).

Along with save compatibility and updates optimized to work on modern systems, all games will support up to 4K resolution. You can also expect a “variety of improvements” for each title, though we’ll likely hear additional details in the coming weeks. Multiplayer has been updated and expanded for each title though.

In fact, Anno 1503 will be receiving multiplayer support for the first time ever. If that wasn’t enough, the Anno History Collection also includes soundtracks, wallpapers and company logos. You even get an ornament for Anno 1800. Anno History Collection launches on June 26th for PC. Check out the announcement trailer below to see each game in action.