DevBlog: Sunken Treasures

The Queen has vanished! But you track her south to sunny Cape Trelawney, site of a great naval battle. In Sunken Treasures’ new Storyline, you will set out on a journey to resurrect the glory of an empire through one of its timeless symbols, the Royal Scepter, lost to the depths during the war. Only by building a vast territorial capital, and seeking out a flea-bitten crackpot by the name of Old Nate—being among other things, an innovator in deep-sea diving—will you be able to restore the empire to its former glory. But beware, you are not the only one hoping to claim the power of the legendary artifact.

Our first big content drop for Anno 1800, Sunken Treasures, will set you on a quest for glory and riches, in which you make history, erecting a new capital to bring a dwindling empire back to its former glory.
We do not want to spoil the fun yet, but can say that an epic new questline will expand on the world of Anno 1800 and the background of its characters. In today’s DevBlog, we will put Sunken Treasures under the looking glass and reveal the first details of this sizeable first DLC (which is both available as part of our Season Pass, as well as stand-alone come release day).

Crazy inventions, lost treasures and dreams of a mega-city

Sunken Treasures’ epic questline, which will become accessible as soon as you reach 700 artisans for save games both new and old, will give you access to a whole new European session: Cape Trelawney.
Space in Anno is precious, as it is the most valuable resource in the jigsaw puzzle of growing a prosperous metropolis. While finding layouts for your production chains and space for your citizen to thrive is part of the fun, many of you always dreamed of something bigger.
With the new continental island, we want to give you the sandbox to toy around with your wildest ambitions. Three times as large as the biggest islands of the main game, this colossal landmass comes with 300 grids worth of coast and more natural resources and fertilities than ever before. While the session itself comes with additional big, medium and small islands to allow the AI to settle or to create your own outposts, the earth on the continental islands is fertile and its mountain ranges rich with resources. You won’t have to worry about keeping your Beer production running with cargo loads of imported hops, as the continental islands fertile ground will allow potatoes, wheat, hops and many other things to grow.

“The present is theirs; the future is mine” Old Nate

Rumors spread among your crew about a hermit living on an isle of wonders, a shabby-looking scavenger and inventor who prefers the company of his own automatons. But don’t let the cock-and-bull stories of your crew fool you; Old Nate may just be a genius— a genius who is willing to share his ground-breaking inventions with all comers, so long as the price is right…

Anno 1800 offers a huge amount of items to optimize your economy and to customize your playstyle.
While traders, expeditions, quests or city attractions provide you with various ways to get your hands on items such as precious specialists or machines, there is always a game of chance attached, as the rarity and type of item depends on loot tables.
With Old Nate, we not only introduce another Third Party character, but we are also giving you access to a new game mechanic, revolving around the inventions of the quaint inventor: crafting.

Armed with one of his groundbreaking inventions, the new diving bell steam ship, he will sent you on a hunt for sunken shipwrecks to bring him the construction materials needed to finish his experiments. Following your instinct, quests or the literal X marked on a treasure map (turns out X does sometimes mark the spot), will lead you to the wreckages of the old battle of Trelawney.
Once you found a wreck, you can launch the diving bell, which allows you to sink down to the bottom of the ocean floor to uncover its lost treasures.
The ship itself is quite an astounding invention. It comes with a unique combination of 6 cargo slots and 3 item slots, which makes it perfect for dangerous expeditions. It functions similarly to your flagship, which means you will only get one ship during the questline and if the diving bell ship gets destroyed, you will be able to replace it.
You can also enhance the ship’s special abilities with wondrous gadgetry such as the sonar, which will be your most powerful when looking for shipwrecks.

Once the bell is hoisted back up the surface, you can see what your courageous crew found down below. While precious spoils such as gold, or pearls, can be sold for a huge profit, the new scrap items show their worth as soon as you bring them back to the eccentric Old Nate, as they serve as crafting material for his inventions.

While the Cape is famous among soldiers of fortune, you will also be able to extend your hunt for Sunken Treasures to existing sessions like the New and Old World!

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” Crafting

Once your ship is all loaded up with scrap of various quality levels, you can return your cargo to Old Nate’s island. In his workshop you gain access to a large variety of item blueprints for powerful devices such as automatons, which will come in handy when creating a larger-than-life city.
However, as you have total control and the freedom of choice to pick which item you want to create in his workshop, it is up to you to work out which combination of items work best for your production pipelines. Furthermore, every item needs a variety of different scrap materials to create, with increasing scrap costs based on the rarity of the item.
With the new crafting system, we wanted to provide you with a tool to create the items you truly desire. As you have full access to Nate’s blueprints, you can also plan ahead and work towards more powerful creations further down the road. Combined with the general pool of items in Anno 1800, the new crafting system becomes especially valuable in the endgame and we cannot wait to see how veteran Anno players will take advantage of the new possibilities to maximize the potential of their empire to levels previously impossible.

Expanding the world of Anno 1800

For the first big DLC, we wanted to work with as much player feedback as possible to expand the world of Anno 1800. With the large continental island, we are giving you a chance to create a true mega-city, and with the new crafting system you will have the agency over items that many of you asked for. We cannot wait to see your reaction to new storyline as many of you stated that you wish for more tales to unfold after finishing the campaign. There is even more than we mentioned today, such as new animals for your zoo, items for your museum or all-new secrets to unravel.

Last but not least, here is Sunken Treasures in numbers:
• A new storyline to experience, with up to 6 hours playtime plus dozens of new additional quests

• A third session including new small, medium and large islands as well as a continental island which is three times as large as the previously biggest island in the game.

• The additional third party trader “Old Nate” who provides access to a brand new crafting and diving bell feature.

• Over 100 new items, including new quest items, dozens of inventions to craft, additional specialists and new sets for your museum and your zoo.

How and when to get Sunken Treasures

We will see you again next week, when we will not only show you the DLC during our AnnoCast Live-Stream on Tuesday, July 23 at 4.30pm CEST, but also share the details about all quality of life features and other changes coming with Game Update 4. Spoilers: You may see a thing or two that the community has been waiting for, which will be coming free to all Anno 1800 players.

So how and when can you get your hands on Sunken Treasures? You will have three options to join us on this latest adventure:

– Buying our Season Pass: It includes our three planed DLCs Sunken Treasure, Botanica and The Passage, at a rduced price versus individual purchases. You will also get access to some exclusive goodies in the form of two company logos, and an additional player portrait, which are only available as part of the Season Pass.

– Buying it à la carte: Each of our three DLCs will be available as a stand-alone purchase at launch, though buying them this way will be more expensive than via our Season Pass.

– The Anno 1800 Gold Edition: If you haven’t joined the industrial revolution yet, we have a new option for doing so in the best way possible, thanks to our new Gold Edition. This digital purchase will be available on the Epic Games Store and Uplay, and will include both the Anno 1800 Digital Deluxe Edition and the Season Pass, giving you the full Anno 1800 experience in one handy package.

All of these options will be available to you when Sunken Treasures launches alongside Game Update 4 on July 30.