We are just one more week away from embarking on our big arctic adventure, making it the perfect time to give you some more updates on The Passage and Game Update 6, and what content you can expect for the rest of this week.
While last week’s Devblog and live streams already gave you a good overview of what to expect from the new update, we know that many of you are looking forward to seeing the full release notes for Game Update 6. You will soon be able to do so, as we will release them here on the Anno Union on Friday, December 6.
Originally, we had also planned to publish a dedicated statistics and co-op DevBlog, but after showing of many of the features in the last AnnoCast, we realized that, given the nature of the statistics feature, showing it in action is worth more than a thousand words of DevBlogs.
So, if you want to pass the time until you ca get your own hands on all the new statistics, you can relive last week’s AnnoCast live stream, where a group of developers spent almost two hours showing off a lot of the new content and features, right here.
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Once again, we will send a group of brave explorers on their way into the frozen north to broadcast their adventures on Twitch. During this Event, you will be able to watch how a variety of selected Twitch Streamers try to open the Northwest Passage. Doing so can reward you with two brand new ornaments: the Anno Union flag and the Passage billboard.
The only thing you need to do is link your Uplay to your Twitch account and watch the streamers during the event for up to 3 hours to receive your loot. But wait, there is one change to the last events: you won’t have to watch consecutive hours anymore to receive your drop; watching the hours accumulated on participating streamers will grant you the ornaments.
Last but not least, our friends from the Annoverse Fan Discord made the recordings of our AMA session from November 25. available for everyone. If you missed the event or want to listen to the lengthy AMAs again, you can do so now here: To the English Roundtable Recording To the German Roundtable Recording
And if you like the idea to get in touch with like-minded Annoholics, even though it could mean that you loose one or more evenings in lengthy chat discussions about your favorite title of the series, consider joining the Annoverse community.
Dearest Elaine, I’ve few breaths left. I die never having found a Passage, but then no glory awaits any servant of Sir John. He was certain the ice would not thicken around us in Spring. Fate of expedition now rests on circumnavigation of Terrier Island by short, perilous west shore, or by long, open east channel— fear I know what Sir John will prefer. Farewell my Elaine.
The frozen north, a final frontier many felt it was their destiny to conquer, whether in the name of science, or for fame and riches. The “Northwest Passage” was a fabled sea route through the Arctic that promised to connect opposite sides of the Northern Hemisphere, conferring great wealth upon anyone brave enough to take an expedition deep into the ice.
From lush jungles to the frozen wastes – A chilling change of scenery Our third and biggest Season Pass DLC, “The Passage,” tells a story of bravery and hardship, inspired by the valiant souls who risked their life in the name of progress, and tasks you to establish an outpost in the Arctic Circle. The sight of the eerie and beautiful wilderness invites everyone to follow in the footsteps of the Arctic explorers of the 19th century, while seasoned Anno players can look forward to an exciting challenge with a worthy payoff at the end.
The Arctic biome is a welcome change to the milder climate of the Old World and the hot and humid islands in the New World. Frozen shores under a dark sky, this barren wasteland allows us to tell a different kind of tale than you might be used to in Anno 1800™, and the harsh weather conditions offer interesting new gameplay elements. Our goal was that conquering the Arctic session should be an exciting endeavor as it will require you to rethink your strategies, away from raising big cities to carefully maintaining an outpost in a seemingly hostile environment.
The new campaign chapter of The Passage will send you on a rescue mission of an Arctic expedition. Inspired by the events of the Franklin Expedition, searching for Sir John and his crew will unfold a dramatic series of events with an unclear outcome.
We need to keep our people warm – managing an Arctic outpost With much potential for striking visuals and room for interesting gameplay additions, we knew that the Arctic biome would be a perfect opportunity to play around with new gameplay mechanics. The new region should be an exciting adventure for everyone but a true challenge for achievers who want to conquer the wasteland in order to reap significant rewards.
Harsh weather conditions are your dire enemy in the north and the new heating mechanic will challenge you to rethink the way you used to create layouts in order to keep your residents warm and healthy. The two new residential tiers, explorers and technicians, are audacious adventurers who, in the name of progress, turned their back to the amenities and comfort of the modern city life.
While their population needs reflect rather pragmatic necessities, the wasteful luxury goods got replaced by the much more urgent need for heat. Residential buildings as well as production facilities need to be connected to a heat source to function properly, with the new category of goods providing additional ways of keeping your residents warm and heathy. The new heaters serve here as the foundation, radiators which allow you to provide a basic level of heat for every building in the vicinity. Like the electric power plant, it automatically places heat pipes along the street network, and thus is relying on street distance rather than a radius. But as its effectiveness is limited, maintaining and expanding your outpost becomes a jigsaw puzzle of proper space and heat management.
The Northern Hemisphere is an icy wasteland, and construction space, as well as basic resources, are sparse. Heaters operate by burning coal, which is hard to come by and requires you to construct charcoal kilns in the sparsely populated woods on islands located on the south or to import coal from the Old World all the way back to your Arctic outpost. New goods such as sleeping bags or parkas will provide an additional source of comfort and thus let the heat meter rise. If you won’t be able to connect buildings to a heater, or if your fuel support falters, goods can provide a sufficient level of heat depending how well you can or want to supply your Arctic residents. But with decreasing temperatures, the risk for a dreaded disease rises: The Arctic Flu. Similar to the illness in the Old World at first glance, the Arctic Flu is a much more dire opponent for your residents due to the harsh living conditions in the North. It spreads faster, is more resilient and has the potential to not only paralyze your fickle northern infrastructure but will also take its toll on your Arctic population. So keep your toes warm to avoid a nasty surprise in the morning.
Adapted to the permafrost – new buildings and production chains Other than constructing heaters,your outpost will give you access to several new buildings and production chains adapted to the life up north. The Ranger Station will not only keep an eye out for fires in your outpost, it also provides medical support for your sick explorers, while the Canteen serves as a social gathering hub but also replaces the marketplace by issuing food and other goods. The Post Office is a new cultural need, allowing your researchers to stay in contact with their friends and families back home. Population needs are as pragmatic as the fight against the freezing temperatures. To support your researchers with a steady supply of jerky, hunting cabins send out rangers to hunt for caribous, whale oil fuels your brass lamps and bear and seal pelts allow you to produce parkas and sleeping bags. But it is hard to survive up there without help from the Old World, and you will need to import canned food provisions and, as you can imagine, Arctic explorers don’t like if their schnapps flask runs dry.
To keep things going, your technicians found a new way of transportation for your snow-covered streets: the husky sled. Your trusty four-legged companions serve not only as a need for your technicians, they also provide satisfying visual feedback in your outpost. Over time, your outpost will grow, and what seems like a barren wasteland for us is called home by others. The Inuit, a new third-party trader, are willing to trade when your stock runs low, as well as offer a variety of new items especially useful in the Northern Hemisphere.
As soon as you overcome the struggle and the daily life on the ice becomes normality, you will find that the Arctic also has plenty to offer. The North can become a profitable hunting ground for precious pelts and there are some especially rich gold deposits, which promise a more efficient supply of the rare metal than your mines in the New World. You will also be able to collect new sets for your museum and your zoo to allow your residents back home to get a grasp of this strange and wild place.
But you are not alone, as news about the natural resources spread quickly and as such, second-party characters will follow you on your path into the Passage to start their own settlements.
Conquering the sky – the Airship Hangar For the ones overcoming the challenges of the hostile environment, a big payoff awaits: the Airship! Inspired by actual historical efforts to building zeppelins in the Arctic to avoid the brash ice, the Airship Hangar is the new monument coming with The Passage. Building this technical marvel will be a huge undertaking, as it requires you to import a lot of construction material from your larger cities in the South in order to finish the four construction stages of the monument. Once you finish the Airship Hangar, of which you will be able to build one in every Arctic settlement, you can start to construct your first airship.
Airships are the ultimate endgame vessel for your trade routes, but they are costly to construct. It not only takes a long time to build one, you also need a new resource to fill their balloons during construction: gas. While your old companion Nate happily supports your first prototype with a shipment of gas, the resource itself exists only in the northern region of the Arctic: to be precise, on barren ice cliffs. Without any real beach for ships to land, and missing any fundamental resources to construct a settlement, these islands are out of reach for any traditional vessel. If you dream of your own fleet of airships, you must claim the icy cliffs and establish your mining outposts with the help of an airbridge.
Airships can safely avoid pirates, and can take direct routes just over islands instead of slowly maneuvering around them. They have also a total of 4 cargo and 2 item slots. However, they are also more strongly affected by wind, and their unloading and loading process naturally takes more time than with a traditional ship.
But airships are not the only new addition to optimize your endgame logistics. Once transported into the Old World, the gas comes in handy if you build one of the new progressive gas powerplants. More effective than their oil-running cousins, the gas powerplant can operate without relying on trains to constantly feed their burners. If you can establish a trade route ensuring a steady supply of gas, the new powerplant can free up important space in your metropolis. But beware: as the gas is a rare resource, you probably must make tough decisions where it makes most sense to replace your old oil plants.
And while talking about technical progress, your scientific endeavors inspired our old friend Nate to work in new inventions, which will expand the crafting list for items you are not limited to use in the Arctic session.
An adventure of epic proportion awaits The Passage is not only our biggest DLC yet, it is also a true passion project from the team. From the atmosphere, to the details to the amount of content coming with the final Season Pass content, we are eager to see how you like our adventure into the frozen wilds. With hundreds of Union members playtesting the content, it is also a true community project and shows how much influence you continue to have on Anno 1800 and its extended content.
Our third Season Pass DLC, The Passage, will release December 10th along with Game Update 6. The Passage expands the content of Anno 1800 with: – A new Arctic gameplay session – Rescue Sir Johns crew in a new story chapter for Anno 1800 – 2 new Residential Tiers: the Explorers and the Technicians – 32 new Buildings, 7 new production chains and 13 new production goods – Over 60 new quests – Fight the cold with the new heating systems – Construct your airship trade fleet in the new Airship Hangar monument
Until next time, when we will share the full list of changes and free content coming with Game Update 6!
End of October, we invited the Anno Union to go with us on an expedition to test the waters of the upcoming DLC The Passage as well as Game Update 6. Over the last couple of weeks, hundreds of Union members tested the upcoming content inside out and provided a huge amount of valuable feedback and reports. After weeks of analyzing your feedback and working on improvements and polishing, it’s now time to break the silence and open the doors of our testing vault, sharing the next steps for the Union and the upcoming content for Anno 1800.
AnnoAfternoon: The Sunken Dragon – Friday 22.11 at 5PM CET After barely escaping a burning city with their settlers, Community Manager Oli and Anno veteran Wolfgang are looking for a new home in Anno 1701. And wasn’t there also something about a mysterious artefact…?
AnnoCast: The Passage – Wednesday 27.11 at 5pm – 7pm CET Don’t forget to pack your parka as it is about to get cold. We thought “Show don’t tell” is the best approach and therefore, we will bring you the next AnnoCast already next week! Join us on an adventure to our arctic outpost to see the Passage and Game Update 6 (this includes a lot of sweet statistics) in action while we answer your most burning questions. You really don’t want to miss this one, as we plan to have a bunch of developers on camera in this almost two-hour long episode.
AnnoAfternoon: “In den kalten Norden” – German Episode – Friday 29.11 at 5pm CET And right after our developer stream, our community team will follow up with a new stream, this time with a special German episode in the frozen wasteland. So not only a good chance to take a look at the Passage after our developer stream, the team is eager to answer your questions or pass your feedback on to the developers.
And as we love that outside window from our studio into the outside window, we are always eager for feedback about our content. Give the channel a follow if you don’t want to miss any future episodes.
Union Talk Episode 4 With the Anno Union, we invited you all to help us developing the next big Anno game. And in that spirit, we love to share as many development insights as possible. In the now fourth episode of our developer podcast, we talk about the postlaunch journey of Anno 1800, conceptions and misconceptions about developing content after the big release and how we continue to work with your input and feedback.
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And as this is a passion project from the development team for the Union, let us know if you would love to see more Union Talks in future and feel free to share your opinion on the topic matter of the latest podcast.
We will also drop new DevBlog’s in the upcoming weeks, where we talk about the development and show gameplay elements of the Passage as well as Game Update 6. Keep a keen eye on the Union for upcoming blogs and of course, we will soon share when The Passage and GU6 lands on your PC.
Annoverse Discord Roundtable Monday 25.11 at 7pm CET And because feedback and communication matters, our Community Developer Basti and Community Manager Oli join another round of the Annoverse Discord Roundtable. The Roundtable is an AMA session in our Anno Fandiscord, where everyone can join asking us anything while the team answers your questions in Voice Chat, if it is development or community related.
The Annoverse Discord is an great meetup place for great Annoholics new and old and we want to say thank you for the continues community support and for the hosting of the Roundtables. In that vein, we strongly encourage you to jump in the Discord yourself, as you will find hundreds of like minded Annoholics there to chat about anything Anno (and more)!
And that was it for this weeks Update but as you can see, it was mere the beginning. You can look forward to a lot of new and insightful content in the upcoming weeks to get you all prepared for journey into the frozen north – Winter is coming, after all!
The invention of the light bulb was more than a mere boon to comfort and luxury. This new way of illuminating the darkness was also an inspiring force for creative minds and a motor for the industry, unshackling them from the natural rhythm of day and night. With electricity playing such an important role in Anno 1800’s economy, there was a strong desire from our community to have a true day and night cycle in the game. Finally, this wish became reality with Game Update 4. As the days are getting ever shorter, what better time to shine a light on this major visual update than in today’s DevBlog!
A true passion project for the players – the beginnings
Since the early days of development, we had been toying with the idea to add a day & night cycle to Anno 1800, similar to the one from 2205. In reality, game development often means throwing a lot of ideas onto a wall and then deciding which ones may be a crucial must-have features, while others end up on a potential “nice to have later” list. While the day & night originally did not make the cut, many Union members told us repeatedly that they would love to see a return of that feature to the series.
Therefore, when some members of our art team had a bit of time available after launch, they immediately set out to realize this previously scraped idea from the early days of Anno 1800. This plan was quickly validated by the modding community jumping on the topic, which showed the big interest in having this functionality in Anno 1800.
Let there be light – developing the Day & Night feature
As is often the case, our artists are perfectionists once they have their hearts set on a topic.So it was clear from the get-go that an official day & night cycle could not simply be about adding a dark night, and sun and moon cycles. Instead, almost every asset players can build would have to be reworked to make sure they look their best, no matter the time of day. Ranging from new glowing textures for illuminated windows to tons of new light sources to ships sailing the nocturnal oceans, we added over 1000 new light sources and changed more than 200 existing assets to provide the intended ambience during the night.
We also had to ensure that the new light sources would start shining during specific times of the day and account for the additional gloom of our dusk and sunset scenarios. In the 19th century, cityscapes started to change drastically with the introduction of the lightbulb. We depicted this in the game world with a more blueish tint to our electric light sources, as opposed to the warmer, yellowish light of candles and fireplaces; this way, a heavily industrialized metropolis will look and feel notably different from a rural hamlet’s atmosphere.
Here you can see how we manually setup a new light source!
Our modern cities are awash with artificial light during the night but back then, they were comparatively sparsely illuminated. Once more, we decided for a tradeoff: we wanted to create an appealing contrast to the darkness while we also did not want to outright dismiss that feeling of a gone century in the midst of transformation into the modern world.
Players would also expect that their city would appear much quieter during the night, but Anno’s cityscapes are normally famously bustling with life. As a result, we had to send our feedback units through another development pass, where we had to reduce the overall amount of residents following their daily business while again, adding and altering light sources. As a result, the streets are less crowded during the late hours. You may also notice some other subtle changes, such as removing the kids from the schoolyard during the night or adding more musicians to the pub to let it appear livelier in the after work hours.
Our tools allowed us to precisely define the tinting of each time of day.
Finally but crucially, we wanted to give the player full control over the scenery. For that, we had to program the functionality to allow them to change the time of day at their convenience or to go for one of our presets, such as daylight, dusk, dawn or midnight. While we decided to make the night hours shorter than the actual day for gameplay convenience, players would also be able to decide to stop the cycle altogether to enjoy their sunset for as long as they like.
It’s not always style over substance – Impact on Gameplay
While changing hundreds of assets manually was a huge albeit worthwhile task, there was more to it than just adding another layer of visual fidelity. In a game like Anno, readability is an important factor to provide a satisfying gameplay experience.
While various tooltips and windows help you to keep an overview about events in your empire, the game also transmits a lot of information through visual feedback happening in your city. A night setting naturally makes it much harder to read what is going on, which necessitated the addition of all these new light sources to make sure that you could still identify all buildings, and not lose track of your ships.
We also played around with ideas how the shift from day to the midst of the night could affect gameplay, and while it would open many possibilities, we realized that doing so would simply add a lot of unnecessary micromanagement, without actually benefiting the overall game experience and player fantasy.
Day & Night, a joint effort
While we have primarily talked about our artists, the day & night update was a collaborative effort from the whole Anno team, drawing on all disciplines from art and engine R&D (research and development) to programming and interface. Judging by the countless of majestically lighted nocturnal cityscapes we have seen online, we are very happy with the results of this effort, and hope you agree as well.
What is your preferred time of day for your empire? And do you make extensive active use of the options available, or do you just roll with the natural rhythm of night and day? Let us know in the comments below!
Today marks the release of our second season pass DLC “Botanica” and Game Update 5. We are eager to see your comments on our latest content update and if you plan to share your marvelous gardens or just want to create content with the free Game Update 5, do not forget to let us know by commenting or mentioning our official social media channels such as @Anno_EN.
https://youtu.be/u_oq8Lfj9JQ
With five big updates as well as three DLC’s in total, the journey of Anno 1800 is far from over yet. With “Passage” sending you on a venturesome journey to the cold north and free updates like the upcoming Coop Mode and Statistic Overview, we will continue to expand the world of Anno 1800 until the end of the year. You will not have to wait too long, as we will share some details about our plans for the next big game update soon.
Anno 1800 Piano Suite
Our new Botanica Music Pavilion is a throwback to old classics and the perfect occasion to celebrate over 20 years of Anno history. And as a thank you for all the support over the years, we want to share something special with you. In partnership with the Anno 1800 composer Tilman Sillescu and Dynamedion, we present to you the music sheet to the original Anno 1800 piano suite.
If just for the collectors heart or for talented musicians (or the ones striving to become one) in our community, the music notes of the piano theme give you some exclusive insight in the work of the talented composer and invite you to create your own Anno 1800 music piece. Let us know if you are hungry for more, and don’t forget sharing your interpretations of the Anno 1800 music with the Anno Union. On that special note, how do you like the idea of a dedicated music stream, maybe with the composer Tilman himself as a special guest?
Anno 1800 vinyl and digital soundtrack
Our special vinyl edition of the soundtrack was in high demand since launch. And we are happy to tell you that this well looked after collector’s item is still available on the store of our friends from Black Screen Records.
And if you just can’t get enough of the Anno 1800 soundtrack, we also made it digitally available on various platforms.
With our free Anno 1800 week during this year’s gamescom, we allowed everyone to try out Anno 1800 and experience the new day night cycle, which is now available for everyone in Game Update 5, for the first time. Anno 1800 is already a dreamland for screenshot artists and we realized quickly: the new day night cycle is the perfect feature to challenge you with a contest.
Together with Corsair Gaming, we asked you to use the new lighting options to capture your city in a new light. And today, we happily announce the winner of our big Corsair Day&Night contest!
First place goes to: Karacolidea’s sunset in the new world! Like in real photography, it is all about the right time of the day to get a painterly shot like this one, where the last light of the day transforms this new world settlement into a scene right out of a fairytale. Congratulations Karacolidea for this wonderful shot and the first place of our contest. You will never be left in the dark with your new Nightsword RGB Gaming Mouse, MM800 RGB Mousepad and the ST100 RGB Headset Stand.
Second place goes to: Neckarmann’s under the full moon It is almost too quite in that moody harbor piece and it is hard to tell if the scene is romantic or if the glooming full moon creates a feeling of unease. But that is the magic about Neckarmann’s screenshot and why we decided it is a well-deserved second place! The Nightsword RGB Gaming Mouse and MM800 RGB Mouspad will find its way to you!
Third place goes to: Carpo’s rising inferno A quite scenery, villagers peacefully resting under the dark night sky….and a full on catastrophe in the making! We had a few great entries with spitting flames in the night but this one captivated us most. Congratulations for the third place and for winning the Nightsword RGB Gaming Mouse.
Keep an eye out for a DM in the forum or on twitter from our community team, as we will need your address to send the Corsair gear and your Anno goodies on the way.
And without further ado, happy gardening everyone and until next time!
By the end of the nineteenth century, the world was largely connected by trading networks, and the industrial revolution brought a spirit of enthusiasm that modernized society. However, while democracy replaced monarchy in many parts of the world, the general populace had limited ways to be a part of cultural and intellectual exchanges. Workers often shared newspapers after a long shift, and eventually museums, zoos, and botanical gardens were made available for everyone. These places were once exclusively for the aristocracy, but ultimately they served as cultural gathering spots for everyone, exposing more people to a larger and more diverse world. Society entered an exciting age of exploration, preservation, and cultural exchange.
Botanica, the second Season Pass DLC, brings an additional cultural building project to the world of Anno 1800. From inviting green avenues, to flowery compositions or as wondrous as colorful exotic plants from far away, the botanical garden is a feast for the eye in your thriving metropolis. Coming with various sets of flora from around the world to use in your decorative garden modules, we add additional ornaments for Anno players who want to live out their inner expressionist.
The Botanical Garden – Experience the Floral Wonders of Mother Nature
Botanica has a total of 21 unique botanical modules, an additional greenhouse, and 11 new ornaments, including flowerbeds and topiaries, which can be used in all three cultural building projects. The new ornaments work as connectors between modules, which leads to more freedom and creativity when expanding the botanical garden, zoo, or museum. To allow all players of Anno 1800 to build more freely, we will also bring the old plaza tile connectors back as a part of the free Game Update 5. We are excited to see players’ creations of stunning vistas, centerpieces surrounded by fountains, and challenging labyrinth structures.
The new ornaments are available via the botanical exhibition in the world fair, but in addition to that, we decided to make them largely available from traders like Madame Kahina and Archibald. Players will also get them as rewards for quests and new expedition events. The new event encounters will let you experience stories of keen botanists willing to risk everything to bring Mother Nature’s floral diversity to the people.
Your large garden estate begs to be filled with floral wonders, and for that we added new sets for the botanical gardens, with 59 new plant items in total. While previous zoo and museum sets mainly affected the attractiveness of your city, we will change things up with Botanica. The sets, whose themes are based on various plant families, their natural biomes, or their use for medical or other purposes, will grant you specific fertilities for the island where the botanical garden is located upon completion.
This gives the garden more practical purpose beyond city attractiveness, as it allows you to strategically place the cultural building on a production island to boost your economy. The Andean set, for example, will add precious coffee fertility on new world islands, or make wheat grow in the old world. On top of that, the effects further boost the productivity of the farms tied to that specific fertility. They affect the island where the garden with the full set is placed, with five different fertility effects for each biome and a total of nine sets. And as we want you to freely play around with the new options, we increased the amount of influence free modules for the botanical garden from 10 to 20.
The Music Pavilion – Enjoy the Symphony Orchestra
You have created stunning museum areas and zoo grounds, but we thought that one piece was missing, a true highlight in your cultural wonderland. The new Music Pavilion is the perfect gathering place for tourists and residents to listen to an orchestra playing symphonies of classic Anno themes while the sunset paints the metropole in a scenic light. Once you’ve found the five music notes containing themes from Anno 1701, 1404, 2205, 2070, as well as the “modern” classic from 1800, you can play them at any time to listen to the orchestra while taking a break from extensive trade route management. The Music Pavilion itself is not limited to the botanical garden; you can build one in each zoo, museum, or garden. The music tracks will also provide an attractiveness buff to certain sets in cultural buildings.
And here comes our second Season Pass DLC: Botanica, in numbers:
21 unique botanical modules
1 glasshouse module
11 unique ornaments modules (such as flower beds and topiaries, usable with all cultural buildings)
9 new sets for your botanical garden, consisting of a total of 59 plants items
The new Music Pavilion, which can be constructed in every cultural building
The Music Pavilion comes with 5 music tracks from the classic themes of Anno 1701, 1404, 2070, 2205, and 1800
That’s all for today’s insights about the second Season Pass DLC, a true content pack for all beauty builders out there, before we take you on an adventure in the icy north this winter.
Botanica will be available from September 10 as part of the Anno 1800 Season Pass or as a stand-alone purchase.
As always, please share your feedback in the comments below and stay tuned for future updates and content from the Anno Union community!
In today’s Union Update, we get ready for the details about our Twitch Drop Botanica event before we follow up with Devblog: Botanica tomorrow and the next Annocast Devstream. Don’t forget to follow our Twitch channel to get notified when we go online with our developer stream this Thursday 4.30pm CEST. And as this week is already quite packed with Anno news and content, we will share the winner of the Corsair Day&Night cycle next week!
Twitch Drop Event: Botanica
To celebrate our upcoming Season Pass DLC Botanica and the Game Update 5, coming next week Tuesday on September 10, we will run another Twitch Drop event beginning this Friday. The whole event takes place from Friday September 6 and to give you some time to pick your favourite streamer, will last until September 15.
During the Event, you will be able to watch how a variety of selected Twitch Streamers wake their inner artist and demonstrate how inspiring or questionable they make use of Anno 1800’s beauty building features. Annoholics watching the shows can grab two brand new ornaments, the Anno Union flag and the Botanica billboard. The only thing you need to do is link your Uplay to your Twitch account and watch the streamers during the event for up to 3 consecutive hours to receive your loot.
If you entertain yourself with Anno 1800 during the event for one hour, you will get the „Anno Union Flagpole” ornament and if you binge a channel for three hours, you will obtain the „Botanica“ Billboard to advertise your new botanical garden.
As you might know already, Anno 1800 will become part of the new Uplay + subscription service, where subscribers can play a vast amount of Ubisoft title, among them Anno 1800 including all DLC content.
If you are owner of the Anno 1800 base game and decide to join Uplay + or to test our new service for the first month, you will be able to enjoy our DLC content. However, please keep in mind to back up your save games, as activating the DLC’s will not be revertible on your saves. After your trial and subscription ends, these saved states of the game where DLC’s are enabled will not be playable anymore until you own the DLC or get access to the content via subscribing to Uplay +.
Experience the Industrial Revolution and Be the First to Test the New Day & Night Cycle during the Anno 1800 Free Week!
Today, we announced that Anno 1800 will be free to play for the occasion of gamescom 2019. Until August 25*, players will be able to get a first glimpse at the upcoming day & night cycle free update, releasing on September 10 for all the players. In addition, the second DLC of the game, Botanica, will also release on September 10 as part of the Season Pass.
Starting today until August 25* players can play for free Anno 1800 on Uplay and the Epic Games Store. The free trial includes the first three tiers of the sandbox mode along with the multiplayer mode. In addition, players will be able to try out for the first time the upcoming day & night cycle and enjoy the beauty of their city by night, to be released as a free update for every Anno 1800 player on September 10.
For Anno players who already own the game, please keep in mind that while the Day & Night cycle will be coming to the full game as a free update on September 10, you can only try it next week as part of the Free Week version. If you want to see the content before it comes out, we recommend to download the free version to check out the upcoming content update.
On September 10, Season pass holders will discover Botanica, the second DLC of Anno 1800. Players will be able to grow their city’s attractiveness to new heights with a modular Botanical Garden, allowing them to earn new items and rewards as they draw the tourist masses to their floral masterpiece. Alternatively, they will be able to construct the new Musical Pavilion and enjoy beloved tracks from previous Anno games inside their city.
Beyond that, we are happy to give you a first small teaser at our third DLC, The Passage, which is coming this Winter, and will allow you to construct your very own trading airships!
With the possibilities of a magical night, what better time to start a new creative contest! Together with the Free Trial, we ask you to share your wonderful screenshots with us.
And here are the rules: – Share your #AnnoDayNight screenshot with us on Social Media or in our dedicated Ubisoft forum thread: Link.
– The deadline is August 26, and we will announce the winners in an upcoming Union Update.
And here are prices, sponsored to bring light into your gaming room by our friends at Corsair:
And on top of that, we throw in one new exclusive Anno 1800 gamescom shirt as a surprise…. good luck and let there be (star)light!
Legal note:
*This software is a free demo of Anno 1800, playable from August 19th, 2019 10pm CEST to August 26th, 2019 9am CEST. This demo is provided AS-IS, may not contain the same content as the full/final game, may not function as expected, and may crash. Please note that maintenance may also occur at any time during this period, rendering you unable to access parts or all of the demo. Ubisoft does not commit to providing customer support for the demo.
Once a year at gamescom, hundreds of thousands of gamers from across the globe come together to celebrate games in Cologne. And once more, we want to invite all Annoholics out there to join our Community Corner sessions in the Ubisoft Lounge and to get a first glimpse of upcoming content.
The Ubisoft Lounge, which is located in the Ubisoft area in Hall 6, is our own dedicated community space where once a day, Anno fans come together to discuss all things Anno with our Community Developer, Bastian Thun. Alongside our daily stage presentations, you can rest assured that we will have some news to share with all of you!
We are looking forward to seeing many of you at gamescom 2019, as there is no advance registration to the Lounge sessions required (though we recommend to arrive early, as space is limited).
And when you are there, don’t forget to share your #Anno1800 #gamescom2019 moments with us (and the community) on Social Media!
With July 30 less than a week away, the release of our first big Season Pass DLC „Sunken Treasures“ draws ever closer. Because of that, we want to talk about our upcoming “Sunken Treasures” Twitch Drop Event!
During the Event, which starts this Friday July 26, you will be able to watch how a variety of select Twitch Streamers explore Cape Trelawney and dive deep to retrieve lost treasures. But getting a preview of the upcoming content is not enough, as watchers of the streams will be able to unlock two exclusive billboard ornaments for their Anno 1800 game.
The only thing you need to do is to watch one of the selected channels playing Anno 1800 for a set amount of time while having your Uplay account linked to your Twitch account. And if you haven’t done so yet, you can check on how to link your accounts here: Ubisoft Twitch Drop FaQ
If you entertain yourself with Anno 1800 during the event for one hour, you will get the „Anarchy“ Billboard ornament and if you binge a channel for three hours, you will obtain the „Sunken Treasures“ Billboard to beautify your city.
