Category: Union Update

Hey Anno Community,

As we are getting ready to reveal our 2020 plans for Anno 1800 next month, we want to inform you about some changes in the Anno development team. At the end of last year, we said goodbye to two long-time veterans of the franchise, Burkhard Ratheiser and Dirk Riegert. While we are sad to see them leave Anno, we can appreciate that working on the same gaming series for over 15 years is a long time and that the huge success of Anno 1800 makes this the perfect time to hand the scepter over to our new leadership. Rest assured that both are staying with Ubisoft Mainz, exploring new ideas for future projects!

Burkhard is not only one of the co-founders of our studio here in Mainz but has been instrumental in Anno’s transition to full 3D as the Lead Programmer of our game engine during the development of 1701. Following that, he worked on Anno 1404 and 2070 as the Head of Graphics and R&D, before moving into game production with Anno 2205. Over the last years, he led Anno 1800’s development as Executive Producer. Of course, many of you know also know him from the eponymous “Burkhard’s Trail” easter egg from Sunken Treasures.

“I’m very thankful that I had the chance to contribute in several different roles to this great franchise. For the last 15 years Anno has always played a big part in my life and with Anno 1800 being the fastest selling Anno ever and for many also the best installment so far, the time has come for me to move to new ventures, handing over the baton to a new team. I would like to thank the Anno community for their great support and feedback over all these years, knowing that the fruitful collaboration will ensure that Anno has a bright future, continuing in providing countless hours of joy and excitement to our fans.” – Burkhard

Dirk probably needs no introduction to Anno devotees, given the number of interviews and live streams he has participated in over the years, earning him the loving nickname of Karrenschieber (“cart pusher”).  He is one of the driving forces behind the Anno games developed in Mainz, starting as Lead Game Designer on Anno 1701 and 1404, before taking over as the franchise’s Creative Director with the Venice add-on. He then took the franchise into the future and even space with Anno 2070 and 2205, before leading the Anno team and franchise into the age of the industrial revolution with Anno 1800 as Senior Creative Director.

„When I started as Lead Designer on ANNO 1701, I wouldn’t have dared to dream that I would help shape five Anno games over the coming 15 years! It is said that one should quit while they are ahead, and after the great success of ANNO 1800 last year this moment has finally come for me. I am already working on new, exciting projects within Ubisoft. The baton with the golden nine engraved in its knob has been passed on to Manuel. I for sure know that he will take perfect care of it.” – Dirk

Which brings us to our new Game Director, so please welcome Manuel Reinher!

Manuel is a true strategy gaming veteran, having first started his career as an artist at Phenomic on Spellforce in 2004, before filling a variety of art related roles on games such as Spellforce 2 and Battleforge (by then as EA Phenomic, as the studio had been acquired by Electronic Arts in 2006). He has now been with Ubisoft Mainz for over 6 years, starting as Lead Artist for the futuristic cityscapes of Anno 2205, before leading the art team responsible for the detail-obsessed 19^th century world of Anno 1800. As Game Director, he will oversee the overall future of the Anno franchise, both for future Anno 1800 content and beyond.

“Hi Anno Union, I’m Manuel, and extremely honored to follow in the footsteps of Burkhard and Dirk. Working on Anno for the last years has been a fantastic journey: After our adventures in space we brought the game back to a historical setting and we are extremely proud to kick off 2020 with new ideas and full of energy.

But, before we head into a bright ANNO future, I want to take the opportunity to say thank you: The success of Anno is just possible because of our hard-working team and the fantastic support we have from our community. So, I grab the baton: we have more opportunities than ever and I’m very excited to take the next steps together with all of you.” – Manuel

And that’s it for today! Please give a round of applause to Burkhard and Dirk for their many contributions to Anno, and a warm welcome to Manuel! And as always, keep an eye on the Anno Union, as we get ready to unveil our plans for Anno 1800 in 2020!

The New Year is already over one month old – about time to share a Union Update with you, feature some great Anno 1800 creations from our community and let you know about our upcoming live streams.

Anno Afternoon Stream

This Friday our community team is traveling into the future for another Anno Afternoon. On this Anno 2070 adventure, Ubi-Thorlof invited his colleague Ubi-Hanabi – the goal: brew some tea, hug a few trees and save everyone from drowning.
Join them on their adventure over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

And if you want your Anno 1800 city to be featured, judged and most likely also devastated live on stream, send us your save games at anno-community@ubisoft.com! When we have gathered a few, we will show off your layouts, parks and fleets in a future Anno Afternoon. *

*We can only accept unmodded save games

Community Spotlight

As usual, we want to share some of the cool creations and stories from the community here on the Anno Union.

Let’s start with jasperwillem’s blog, a great source for tutorials and tips&tricks for Anno 1800. You can find detailed blogs and videos about all phases of the game, the different population levels and more. Worth checking out!

If you instead prefer some entertainment, Normul8or’s new video series could be for you. The goal: creating a city purely dependent on imports. To follow him on his journey, head on over to his YouTube channel.

Now, we all know you love creating beautiful cities with massive parks and impressive zoos and museums. And we never grow tired of looking at your creations and sharing them here.

Bootlegsoldier went all-in and hid something in his city – can you see it?

And since working in a team gets things done a lot quicker, Smeerwolf teamed up with some friends to beautify his city – the result you can see here:

We know you’re all waiting for what exciting things we have planned for Anno 1800 this year.
Right now we’re still very busy creating new content for you to enjoy and are looking forward to sharing more with you, soon.

This year has been an incredible ride and 2019 will always be remembered as a big moment in Anno history, where Anno 1800 finally set sail to conquer the world. But it is not the end of a journey, merely a beginning. With the support of the Anno Union, the game became an overwhelming success and with the wind in our back and the wide horizon before us, we are looking into a bright future for the series.

Only 8 months after our maidens’ voyage, many thousands of players pushing their empires into the industrial revolutions every day and the numbers are still growing. With a strong season of content, from Sunken Treasures, Botanica and our latest DLC The Passage, up to many free game additions and updates such as Co-op, day night and statistics, our journey is far from over.

New adventures will await you 2020, with new content to expand the scope and enhance the experience of Anno 1800 even further. But before that, it is time to catch breath and to enjoy the holiday season with our family, friends and most likely playing a lot of games during our Anno Union winter break.

We will return in January with insights and updates about our future vision for the game. Until then, the whole Ubisoft Mainz team says thanks to all of you for your incredible support in 2019 and a happy holiday season to you and your beloved ones.

It was an eventful year and we reach the final week of the Anno Union coverage until head into our traditional winter break in order to
recharge our batteries, most likely during Co-op matches with our friends and
family. And to end this exciting and eventful year on a high note, as we have two more live-streams to come, an early Christmas gift for all of you and not to forget, we had our big win at this year’s German Entwicklerpreis game awards show!

Game Update 6.1 lands tomorrow, Tuesday December 17. at 2pm CET

The start of the week is marked by Game Update 6.1, which will land Tuesday December 13. at 2pm CET (tentatively). The update will address issues reported by our communities about instances of stability and performance issues as well as getting rid of the pesky fog haunting your islands. You can check out the full release notes here. Smooth sailing!

Anno 1800 wins in four categories at the German Game Awards

The Anno Union accompanied the development of the game since the early days and your influence on the quality of the game is something which we are very proud of. And so should you be, given the fact that Anno 1800 had been nominated for four awards at this year’s Germen Developer Awards: Best Graphics, Best Sound, Best Game Design and overall Best Game.

As you can imagine, we were incredibly excited to win not one, not two, not three, but four of these awards for our game! Thank you all for your support and encouragement during development of the game.

Lights and camera on – Two more live-streams to come this Wednesday and Friday!

What better way to end the year for us than to celebrate 2019 and the upcoming holiday season with all of you.

This Wednesday, we will host another episode of our AnnoCast livestream directly from the Anno 1800 studio in Mainz. As has become a tradition in the last years, we invite you to our get together where we reminisce about 2019’s big milestones, from launch to the many updates which followed, while playing Anno 1800, eating cookies and raffling out a few early Christmas gifts to our loyal viewers.
AnnoCast: Holiday Special this Wednesday, December 18 at 4pm CET until 6pm CET

But our Anno 1800 community team does not plan to end the year quietly either, as they will once more journey into the frozen north on their search for the lost Christmas presents. To find out whether they will succeed (plus a chance to grab some Anno goodies yourself), tune in this Friday to support them morally on their adventure.
AnnoAfternoon: The lost Presents, December 20 at 5pm CET until 7pm CET 

And to watch, the only thing you have to do is to grab a tea or hot chocolate (we hear there may be some coffee shortages…) and to tune in to our official Ubisoft Blue Byte channel: Twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte 

  And to ensure that you don’t miss any future shows, feel free to follow our channel and the Anno 1800 category on twitch!

Anno 1800 Wallpaper Pack

Last but not least, we have a little gift for all of you to get you in the right mood for the holidays. In response to the high demand from our communities, we re-sized a bunch of the Anno 1800 season pass and holiday key-arts and wrapped them in a nice Wallpaper package. Don’t forget to let us know your favorite one and we are curious if you created your own Anno wallpapers in the past.

You can just download the package here:

Happy Holidays and we see you Wednesday!

Play in the Anno 1800 Free Week from December 11 to 18
It has been 8 months and many Game Updates and improvements since Anno 1800 first set sail. To show any of you still on the fence how far the game has come since launch (and to give you the perfect excuse to invite some friends to try the new co-op mode together) we are running another Free Week for Anno 1800 later this month. From December 11 to 18, everyone can download and play the Free Week version of Anno 1800 from Uplay or the Epic Games Store. As with our first free week back in August, keep in mind that this is a stand-alone build of Anno 1800 that you must be separately downloaded. In addition, it is for technical reasons not possible to carry over any save games from the Free Week version to the regular game.

The free version of Anno 1800 will include the first three residential tiers in sandbox mode as well as all free Game Updates, which means multiplayer and co-op for everyone (alongside previously released content like the day & night mode). The content of the Anno 1800 Season Pass won’t be included in the Free Week version of Anno 1800.

And if you have some friends that you always wanted to play some co-op with who have yet to get the game, we have some good news for them: as part of the Free Week, all three editions of the game will be discounted by up to 55% on the Epic Games Store and Uplay!

As we get closer to next week’s update hattrick of The Passage (available as part of the Anno 1800 Season Pass or as a stand-alone purchase), co-op mode and new statistics system (available as a free update to all players), one question has become prevalent within our communities: “What`s next for Anno 1800?” Does The Passage mark not only the end of our Season Pass, but of development overall? Or can Annoholics look forward to more industrial adventures in 2020? Today, we want to answer that question by raising the curtain just a little bit…

Bring the Holiday Spirit to your cities on December 10

First, we have one more surprise in store for next week- the release of our “Holiday Pack”. This standalone DLC Pack (not included in the Season Pass or any editions of the game) adds a total of 23 new ornaments to the game, allowing players to build their very own Christmas Markets in their cities- including huts, Christmas trees and even a carousel featuring some vehicles from the game!

If all this sounds familiar to you as Anno fans, you are right; we did similar content packs for Anno 2070 as well, like the “Eden Series Package”. So why bring them back now? We know that Anno players love few things more than having new buildings to add to their cities, and there can never be enough variety when it comes to decorations and ornaments! At the same time, feature-rich DLCs like The Passage take several months of development, making it impossible for us to release them as frequently as we would like to deliver new content to you all to keep Anno 1800 exciting and fresh.

As a compromise between these aspects, our talented art team has created this pack of Holiday-themed ornaments to see if this is a content format that will appeal to the Anno community. Should the Holiday Pack prove popular with players, we would love to create more such themed packs in the future. Who knows, we could even run a vote on the Anno Union to decide on future themes to give you all something to look forward to as we work on new gameplay content!

And speaking of which…

There is more Anno 1800 on the way!

Enough teasing, here is what you all wanted to hear: The Passage is not the end for Anno 1800, and we are working on new gameplay content and features to further expand the world of the industrial revolution in 2020!

There is however a caveat: The team has been busy finishing The Passage and Game Update 6, and it will be some time before we will be able to share more concrete information with you all.

With that said, we hope you are as excited about this news as the team is, and we look forward to talking more about the future of Anno next year!