Category: Live Stream

Union Update: Survey and live streams

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

we hope you all had a great start into the summerly month of July!

We wanted to give you a very short overview of what’s going on right now and coming up in the near future.

Anno Union survey

First, as a reminder: Right now, until the end of Sunday, we’re running a survey on the Anno Union website and our communication over the last years in general.

We want to know a bit more on how you use this website, if you liked our content and the way we presented it and if there’s anything you didn’t like or would like to see us improve upon.

Follow the link above for a short (about 10min) and completely anonymous survey. Thank you to all the people who already sent us their replies!

Annoversary Livestreams

We also continue with our plans for doing livestreams for every single Anno game:

Today, join Jan (Development Tester), Anastasiia (Junior UI Designer) and Oliver (Community Developer) for adventures in Anno 1701 – the first Anno title developed by Ubisoft Mainz (back then: Related Designs). We’ll be looking at the unique features of Anno 1701 compared to its predecessors and descendants and chat a bit about our daily work on Anno. Tune in at 5PM CEST over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

Next Friday (14th), we’re diving into fan-favourite Anno 1404! Celeste (Community Manager) and Oliver are gearing up for a multiplayer match – with a twist: We’ll be relying on chat to decide where to settle, how to name our cities and what to build. Expect a tense high-skill match as you’re used to from our previous streams. Come and say hello! Same time, same place.

Upcoming Cosmetic DLC

Soon we will also have news on the upcoming Cosmetic DLC that some of you have already been asking about – and we’re looking forward to showing it to you! The DLC itself is scheduled to release in late August but we will have some first impressions very soon, and then the usual blog and the patch notes for the next Game Update in a few weeks.

Keep an eye on our channels!

Union Update: 2 million players and lots of news

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hello Anno Community,

Yesterday has been a day packed with news during our End of the Year stream: a new game mode, the upcoming Cosmetic DLC… and, wait a second, the Season 4 announcement? Let’s go with order.

The GGJ Scenario – Eden Burning

As you might know already, back in June we announced our participation in this year’s Green Game Jam. Our plan was to create a new, alternative game mode to raise awareness for environmental issues and to support the “Play 4 Forest” campaign.

Yesterday we published a DevBlog dedicated to the Green Game Jam mode that, during development, turned into a scenario called Eden Burning. This overview will provide you with all the information you need to be prepared for this new challenge which will release together with GU 13 on December 14th.

If you cannot wait until then and would like to have a first look at the early game, check out the VOD of our livestream.

Also part of this green initiative is the “Plant a Tree” Cosmetic DLC. The proceeds from this Cosmetic DLC will go to Ecologi – you can find more info here at the end of the linked DevBlog.

Game Update 13 & CDLC06 

On December 14th we will also release our latest Cosmetic DLC, “Vibrant Cities Pack”. Want to know more about it? Check this dedicated DevBlog for all the info you need. 

What about GU13 you might ask. This Game Update will contain as per usual some bug fixes and improvements based on Community feedback. Keep an eye on the Anno Union for the Release Notes, which will be published by the end of the week. 

Ubi35 and Anno 1404 Giveaway

Earlier in November Ubisoft started their celebration for their 35th anniversary, with various giveaways and contests. As part of this celebration, you can now redeem a copy of Anno 1404 History Edition for free, until December 14th! Click here to get your copy – and tell your friends!

2M players

We’re not done with celebrations: We are proud to announce that there are now more than 2 million Anno 1800 players around the world! To celebrate this very special occasion, we will release two resplendent ship skins, one for the Ship of the Line and one for the Battle Cruiser. Both ship skins will be released on December 14th, with GU13.

Here is an overview of some your achievements – thank you for your constant and amazing support, Annoholics!

Season 4 Announcement

Last but not least, the moment we were all waiting for. Yesterday we announced that Season 4 is coming to Anno 1800 in 2022! The new Season will consist of three new DLCs and focus on the New World. At the moment there are only a few things we can share with you, and you can find everything in this blog.

This is all for today’s Union Update. We hope you are as excited as we are for the year ahead of us. Today, more than any other day, happy city-building!

Gamescom Summary: More to come in 2021

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

Today was a great day for us cause not only could we show you some live gameplay of “The High Life” in our gamescom livestream, but we were also able to talk about what else you can expect to come to Anno 1800 in the next months.

What’s to come AFTER The High Life?

With Season 3 coming to an end with next week’s DLC, we want to give you an overview of what’s still to come to Anno 1800 this year – some of it you already know and expect, some of it will be new.

Cosmetic DLCs

Following the Community Vote in April, you’re probably all very much aware that the two winners are still to be released. As communicated earlier this year, this will happen after the release of “The High Life”, starting with the “Pedestrian Zone Pack”.

True to its name, it will focus on ornaments for your inner cities, from a Market Hall over over- and underpasses to public toilets you can expect a variety of objects to beautify your cities for pedestrians. You can have a first look at some of them below:

And… we’ve seen some pictures of canals! More details on that in a few weeks, because the release is planned for in just about one month: September 28th!

This year’s third Cosmetic DLC, the “Vibrant City Skins Pack“ (name not yet final) will release at the end of this year and bring some more visual variety to your cities! We’ll have more details on this CDLC closer to its release.

History Weeks

For autumn, a quick look at the calendar tells you there are four Annoversaries coming up!

More importantly, they include Anno 1701, the first Anno title developed by us here in Mainz, celebrating 15 years since release! How the time flies…

Expect insights into the Anno history, lots of nostalgia and multiple live streams to celebrate Anno’s long city-building tradition.

Big End of the Year Update and Green Game Jam

We left one big thing for last and some of you might already be wondering “what happened to the Green Game Jam?”.  Well, in December we will release Game Update 13, one big free Game Update including several more quality of life improvements as well as bug fixes.

 

Also part of this release will be the Green Game Jam project: We’re adding a new game mode, in which you will travel to a separate region set in the New World. To fulfill your main goal there, you will have to develop a city, but new mechanics make this endeavour significantly more challenging: Monocultures and overfishing can quickly lead to food supply issues while limited non-regenerative resources need to be well-spent. Will you be able to construct and maintain a sustainable city while keeping your environmental impact balanced?

As usual, we will be able to give you more insights into the new content closer to its release, when development has progressed enough that we can show you something.

Make sure to check out our gamescom live stream and our DevBlogs if you haven’t done so already – and get ready for “The High Life” releasing next Tuesday!

Union Update: Twitch Drops & Vehicle Liveries Pack

Posted on by Lefay

Hey Anno Community,

the release of “Tourist Season” is drawing closer – but not just “Tourist Season”.

Next Tuesday also marks the day when the “Vehicle Liveries Pack” Cosmetic DLC will be released in the Ubisoft Store, Epic Store and on Steam (for owners of the Steam version of Anno 1800) for the price of 4,99€ or your regional equivalent. You can find details about the Cosmetic DLC here.

This is the first of three Cosmetic DLC we plan to release this year, the others being the two winners of the Community Vote. Expect some early details on the first of them in summer.

Twitch Drops

Over the coming days, we will give you the opportunity to already take a closer look at the contents of Season 3’s second DLC – “Tourist Season” –  by watching some of your favourite streamers during another Twitch Drops Event.

The whole event takes place from Friday, 21.05.2021 until Sunday, 30.05.2021.

During the event, you will be able to watch how a variety of selected Twitch streamers turning their cities into massive tourist attraction spots. Oh, and don’t forget about all the new ornaments!
Anyone watching them construct Restaurants, Hotels, Orchards and the Chemical Factory while planning their bus network can grab two brand new ornaments, the “Tourist Season” Flag  and the “Tourist Season” Lamppost. The only thing you need to do is to first link your Ubisoft account to your Twitch account and then watch the streamers during the event for up to 3 hours to receive your loot. You don’t have to watch these hours consecutively to receive your drop; watching them accumulated on participating streamers will also grant you the ornaments.

After receiving a drop, you need to claim it via the Twitch inventory.
Please be aware that all rewards will only be delivered to you after the end of the Twitch Drop Event.

If you haven’t already done so in the past, make sure to first link your Ubisoft- and Twitch-account by following the steps outlined on this website.

You can find the full list of all participating Streamer below:

English

Dutch

Polish

French

German

Union Update: Voting winners and today’s live streams

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Winners of the Cosmetic DLC Voting

Let’s start with the big news of the week:

The community vote has concluded and we got our winners! It ended up being a significantly clearer victory than what we had last year.

On first place with 35.87% of the votes we have the “Vibrant Cities Pack”, followed by the “Pedestrian Zone Pack” with 29,43%.

The “Big Top Pack”, for the 2nd time in a row, ended up in last place with only 6,67% of the votes.

 

So, as we said during the initial announcement, our team will now start working on the two winner topics and we’re planning to release them later this year. More info on the dates to follow.

We will, however, give you the occasional insights into what we’re working on for both Cosmetic DLC.

Annoversary multiplayer stream

We also want to remind you once more that later today, at 5PM CEST (11AM EDT) Oliver and Nele are hosting an Anno 1800 multiplayer stream with several members from the Anno community. So, grab a coffee and join us later today for belated birthday celebrations on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

And yet another stream

But that’s not all! For more streaming goodness, tune in right after the previous stream at 7PM CEST (1PM EDT) on twitch.tv/ubisoft/! Our Game Designer Andrea joins the Ubisoft News team to support them with some tips and share anecdotes from her time working on Anno 1800.

Finally… we shared this little GIF yesterday for Earth Day: A short glimpse at what you can expect to come to Anno 1800 with an upcoming Free Game Update.

 

Union Update: News and a 1602 livestream

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hello Annoholics,

in this week’s Union Update we’ll give you a quick round of news for the upcoming days:

 

Update on Wednesday 24th

We received some reports about issues with certain antivirus programs and will therefore replace the current Anno.exe in an update tomorrow. This update does not include any fixes or other changes.

Anno 1602 Livestream

Might feel like yesterday for some, but Anno 1602 is turning 23 on Wednesday next week! This calls for a livestream (and maybe a History Collection giveaway?), but with next week cut short due to the Easter weekend, we decided to celebrate a bit earlier:
This Friday at 5 PM CET we invite you to join us on Twitch when we dive into an Anno 1602 multiplayer match!

Game Update 10.2

We’re currently in the process of testing Game Update 10.2. We’ll share more information and the Release Notes with you next week.

Anno 1404 (legacy) Online Services

We have to inform you that the decision was taken to shut down the services for some older Ubisoft games with smaller online audiences on May 22nd. This includes the legacy version of Anno 1404.
The reason for this is that it allows the Ubisoft IT and service staff to better focus on newer titles with bigger active player numbers. We understand that the multiplayer of Anno 1404 is still popular with parts of our community and that some of you may therefore be disappointed by this news. Until May 22nd the online services including the multiplayer will still be fully available, the singleplayer experience is not affected.
A list with all games for which the online services are or will be disabled can be found on the official Ubisoft Forums.

Union Update: Anno 2205 live stream & Community Spotlight

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

While this is not yet the week for Season 3 news, the waiting clearly inspires some people to write creative short stories about their impatience – maybe we should do a story contest later this year…

You will still have to wait a little bit longer until we start with news about Game Update 9.3 – and of course Season 3.

 

In the meantime, the Anno Afternoon livestream with Anno 2205 originally planned for last week will happen this Friday! Join Thorlof when he’s taking his first-ever steps into the city-building world of Anno 2205 on the 29th at 5 PM CET (11 AM EST) over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

Community Spotlight

As usual, we love to share some impressions from our community in our Union Spotlight, so let’s dive right in:

If you’re looking for gameplay tutorials or know someone who could use some, there are by now a vast amount of video guides, tips&tricks collection and written explanations out there. This week we want to showcase itroo’s channel who is producing various tutorial videos for a few weeks, ranging from a statistics overview to trading.

 

Is Anno 1800 the hardest Anno title yet? This discussion was recently started on the Anno subreddit – maybe you want to jump in? 😉

 

 

It’s always hard to just pick a handful of screenshots for this section, so we encourage you to check platforms like Reddit or the Annoverse Discord for even more fantastic pictures!

Starting with Paw who shared a very moody screenshot of their Arctic settlement on Discord:

Kaluginmir shared screenshots of his Crown Falls city on Reddit – we especially liked the harbour area with the diagonal quays!

 

“Some love for the New World”, as Wyder_ out it when sharing their big New World settlement:

 

And finally, since we showed this city before this update is definitely worth sharing – Laudica’s circle city is finished!

 

As always, we love seeing more screenshots, clever videos, record attempts and interesting stories that we can share here on the Anno Union! 🙂

 

*Note: Screenshots and videos in the Community-Spotlight can include elements like buildings from mods that are not available in the regular game.
Please be aware that the use of mods is at your own risk and can lead to technical issues or bugs.

Union Update: We are back & Community Spotlight

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

A happy belated New Year to you all!

We hope all of you made it safely into 2021.

 

By now, the full team is back at work after their holiday break and we’re eager to continue working on Anno 1800 and Season 3.

We’re excited to soon share more details about what we have planned for 2021 with you – but for those details, you will still have to wait a little while longer 😉

 

What we can tell you already, is, that Game Update 9.3 is in the works and will – amongst others – including a fix for everyone affected by the missing Ubisoft Connect Rewards.

 

If you’re looking for some entertainment to bridge the waiting period, what would you say about a little time travel next Friday? In this upcoming Anno Afternoon, Thorlof and Ubinmyheart will be playing the one Anno title neither of them has tried before: Anno 2205! Join them on January 22 at 5PM CET over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

Community Spotlight

In this week’s Community Spotlight, we’re focusing on 3 milestones or records our awesome community has achieved.

Firstly, the Anno subreddit, which reached 30.000 users at the very end of last year. Over the last years, we have greatly enjoyed and valued the jokes and discussions on r/anno – as well as the welcoming atmosphere for any kind of questions by new players and veterans alike.

If you’re looking for a platform to discuss the Anno series or specific game features, like helping new players with tips and advice, or want to share experiences and screenshots from your game, the Anno subreddit is a great place to go.

As an example, in this post Annolegend takes you on a tour through their city Arch Capital:

 

Now talking records, German Twitch streamer Radlerauge set himself the challenge to construct and start 10 World’s Fairs in just 10 hours. If that wasn’t enough already, he finished them all after 7,5 hours and plenty of time to spare!

You can watch his stream here.

 

And one more mega-record: Drake-1503 recently shared on the forums the story of him reaching an incredible 4 million inhabitants in his current savegame. We have seen plenty of record building since release but the new heights some of you push into are truly impressive. If you want to see for yourself, he also uploaded his savegame in this thread.

 

Congratulations to both of you for these achievements!

And if you’re hunting records or got great stories to share, don’t hesitate to tag us on Twitter or share them over on the forums or Reddit.

Technical Test start and an Anno Afternoon

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

The Technical Test has started!

The Technical Test for Land of Lions and Game Update 9 has started this morning and the first wave of invites have been sent out over the weekend.

If you have not received an e-mail yet, keep in mind we’ll be inviting several waves of testers over the coming weeks – just like last time. So keep an eye on your inbox!

For everyone participating in the test, please keep in mind the Technical Test is under an NDA, which means you’re not allowed to share any details, pictures or videos of the test except in the dedicated forum.

Therefore, please visit this dedicated forum and share your feedback there – and only there 😉

 

We know you’re all impatient for more news about Land of Lions to be prepared for its release in Autumn. And do not worry, after the conclusion of the Technical Test we will slowly start on the road to release.

Anno 1701 adventures in this week’s Anno Afternoon

This Friday it’s time for another Anno Afternoon. It’s Anno 1701’s turn now and Ubi-Thorlof – with very professional help from Ubi-Hanabi – will go on an adventure in the first Anno game created by Related Designs, the team you now know as Ubisoft Mainz!

If you want to offer help in building a functioning city or just want to chat with them and other community members then join on Friday 24th at 5PM CEST over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

There’ll also again be an opportunity to win a key for the full Anno History Collection! 😉

Anno History Collection Game Updates

Last but not least, our team is currently working on another Update for the Anno History Collection. One of the points we’re investigating for this Update are the performance issues in Anno 1404 you reported to us.

An Anno Afternoon with Anno 1503

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Anno Afternoon with Anno 1503

After taking a trip into the year 1602 last week, this week calls for adventures in 1503 – new islands want to be settled!
Ubi-Thorlof and Ubi-Trenchcoat are facing each other again in the multiplayer mode of the second game of the Anno series – and they’re bringing gifts! Like last week, you’ll have the chance to win a key for the complete Anno History Collection.

Tune in on Friday, July 10th, at 6PM CEST over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

Of course more streams for the remaining games of the History Collection are planned and we have a few ideas on how to spice things up a bit.

If you have feedback to past livestreams or suggestions for future ones – let us know! Are there “special guests” you’d like to see on the show or is there a specific format you wish to see, for example another stream where we’re looking at savegames from the community? Write it in the comments.

In other news…

And when we’re already talking about the History Editions: Our team us currently working on the second update for the Anno History Collection. We will soon share more details with you.

Finally, don’t forget we just announced the Technical Test for Land of Lions and Game Update 9. If you want to help us test the last big update of Season 2, sign up for the test!