• Anno 1800
  • Union Update

Union Update: Open Beta details and system specs! (Updated)

  • 02.04.2019

In today’s update, we detail everything you need to know about our upcoming Open Beta and reveal the much-requested final system requirements for Anno 1800!

Let’s talk Open Beta
The Open Beta is the perfect opportunity for you to test the game prior to its launch. Starting on April 12 and running until April 14, it will give everyone in the community a final chance to test Anno 1800 prior to its release on April 16.

Open Beta Game Content
You will be able to test a near-final version of the game and see the improvements since our Closed Beta for yourself, including access to the Multiplayer mode. Moreover, while game progression will again be capped at tier 3, we will for the first time invite you all to get your hands on Anno 1800’s story-based campaign, as the complete first Act will be part of the Open Beta.

There’s no NDA, so stream away
With this being an Open Beta, there won’t be a NDA. Therefore, you are not only allowed, but also in fact highly encouraged to share your experiences and to create content, whether it is streaming, videos or resource calculators!

If you’re on Social Media, make sure to use the Hashtags #Anno1800, #AnnoUnion und #Anno1800OB and tag our channel @Anno_EN. That way we can share all your great creations with the rest of the Annoholics community.

Supported languages
We are also happy that the Open Beta will for the first time give Union members a chance to experience the game in all supported languages! As with the full game, the Open Beta will be localized in all of these languages:

Fully localized Text and Audio:
English / German / French / Russian

Fully localized Text:
Italian / Spanish / Japanese / Korean / Polish / Chinese (traditional and simplified)

Save games will not carry over into the full game
Your Open Beta save games won’t carry over into the final version of Anno 1800, so you are free to go absolutely crazy and try wild things without having to worry about long-term repercussions. You also won’t be able to update the Open Beta to the full release version, so feel free to delete the Open Beta as soon as it sends to save space on your hard disk.

We always try to give you some context and explanations for your decisions- so why can’t your save games be carried over? One key reason is the way our AI works in the game. As the Open Beta content is limited to the first three (out of five in the full game) citizen tiers, the AI will of course also be blocked from progressing any further (as to not have an unfair advantage compared to human players). This could lead to issues with the AI if you were to carry your save game over into the full game, where they would suddenly have access to tiers 4 and 5 again. Our top priority is to ensure that you will have the best possible experience playing Anno 1800 on April 16, so to avoid any issues with such scenarios, we decided against carrying over save games. Rest assured that this issue won’t appear in the full version, where there are of course no limitations on the available content (for either AI or human players).

Is there a reward for participating in the Open Beta?
We are glad you asked- yes there is! Participants in our Open Beta will be able to earn the exclusive “Chess Table” decoration, which can be claimed from the Ubisoft Club after launch! All you need to do to earn it is to play at any time during the Open Beta period.
How to play the Open Beta?
Anno 1800’s Open Beta will be available and open to everyone via Uplay or the Epic Games Launcher. You won’t have to register at the Anno Union and can just download the game as soon as the pre-load becomes available from your launcher.

We prepared a chart for you with the release timing of the Open Beta. To make sure you are ready the moment the Open Beta begins, we will also offer pre-loading starting from April 10.

Updated: Always-Online for the Open Beta

We also want to give you a heads-up that the Open Beta will require a constant internet connection to play. Please note that this is not the case with the main game, as you will be able to fully enjoy Anno 1800’s singleplayer modes while being offline! 

The final system specs are here
After spending some additional development time optimizing the game performance following our Closed Beta, we are happy to finally announce the official system requirements of Anno 1800. We tried to break them down into some of the most common settings scenarios to give you a better idea of what to expect.

We have also been hard at work with our friends at Intel to optimize the game for integrated GPUs, and are happy to be able to include some of Intel’s iGPUs in our system requirements matrix (a first for the Anno series!). We hope that this will allow an even wider group of players to explore the industrial revolution with us.
We will stream our panel at this year’s EGX Rezzed live from London
Anno 1800 will be playable at EGX Rezzed 2019. This year’s event, taking place at London’s Tobacco Dock on April 4-6, is an opportunity for you to lead the industrial revolution and try out new gameplay. Also, join Bastian Thun, Anno Community Developer, on the Developer Stage on Thursday 4pm GMT+1 as he provides an insightful commentary into the world of Anno 1800.
You can also head over to their Develop session page to find out more details.

Keep an eye on the Anno Union as we will share the live stream on our website this Thursday at 4pm CET.

Next AnnoAfternoon: Lead the industrial revolution together
Following the stream from EGX on Friday, we will have a new episode of our AnnoAfternoon community show where Guddy and John need your help to steer their empire successfully through the industrial revolution. As always in our community livestreams, you can have an impact on the way we play while meeting other Anno crazy strategy game aficionados.

AnnoAfternoon: Revolutionize together
4pm GMT +1 Live on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

Comments

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36 Comments
  1. A Aguiadourada

    I hope someday they will put Portuguese subtitles in the game!

  2. M MFN1973

    i can not play the betaversion, the firts version i can played now i cannot play this version

  3. S SS-Landstorm

    Anno 1800’s Open Beta will be available and open to everyone via Uplay ….

    The link to download the game is nowere to be found in my UPLAY launcher please help me
    My friend opened UPLAY and saw in the news directly a link to play the beta but in mine we cant find it anywere

  4. G Golima1992

    Why in Epic Launcher I have note Unavailable for OpenBeta Anno 1800 ?

  5. S Strickland_Dk

    for us who bought it on steam can we play the open beta aswell?

  6. t tsJarlieBQ

    Finally, after waiting for so long, testing alpha, testing closed beta and open beta tomorrow, the game arrives !
    Next tuesday I will play my pioneers version !

    One little spell fault in your text :
    ” as it sends to save ” should probabaly be “as it ends to save”

    • F FabLau

      I feel the same 🙂 My pioneer’s version will come to me around tuesday too ! I can’t wait 🙂

  7. M MichelGuilhem

    Where can i load the open beta. is it too soon in the 10 april ?

  8. d doranhome

    where is the link to d/load the open beta?

  9. O Outcast_UA

    how to access the open beta ANNO 1800

    • n njsm2010

      You download the game as soon as the pre-load becomes available from your launcher.

      • U UberSlug66SS

        its the 12th and still don’t see beta to download in launcher. not sure where to look anymore. help

        • p pilek01

          do you have uplay? its on the main page of uplay. just add the open beta to your game library and start downloading.

  10. J Just.One.Sec

    Devs, thank you very much for all the info so far! But I have a question regarding the actual release of the game (on April 16th). We hear a lot about the upcoming open beta (which I’m of course super hyped about! :D), but not much about the official release. Can you guys give us some more info about when we can preload the game and maybe a time schedule when we can start playing on the 16th? Thanks!

  11. S SeV77En

    The release date of the game will not change any more?

    I can’t wait to play this game.

    • B BB_CR

      Looking at the game box at my desk. I am very confident that the release date won’t change again, yes 🙂

      Best,
      Marcel

  12. A Astydan

    ” Fully localized Text and Audio:
    English / German / French / Russian”

    Oh come on the Italian is the fourth official language of the world! Ubisoft has always located all its products in Italian!

    I will buy the game when the Coop is introduced!

    • b banan1996.1996

      Italian isn’t the fourth official language and when it comes to the number of native speakers it’s not even close to the first 10.

      And you’ll have all text in the game translated to Italian.
      Even Spanish which is much much bigger than Italian has only text localisation and no audio.

    • B BB_CR

      I understand this may be disappointing as a player, but the decision into which languages the game should be localized is unique for every game . In our case, we did of course also consider historical sales data of other Anno games in the different markets.

      • R RUVIDOZ

        sicuramente i dati sarebbero diversi se nelle altre versioni a partire anno 2025 fosse stato presente italiano come in anno 2070 poi avete deciso di cambiare rotta e avete dato un calcio a molti giocatori di anno che si lamentano della mancanza di locale ita completo come mai avete deciso di darci un calcio?non siamo un popolo abbastanza grande per ubisoft? decisioni molto sbagliate portafoglio molto meno pieno,

        • R RUVIDOZ

          surely the data would be different if in the other versions starting from 2025 it had been present Italian as in the year 2070 then you decided to change course and you gave a kick to many players of the year who complain about the lack of a local ita complete as you ever decided to give us a kick – aren’t we big enough for ubisoft? very wrong decisions much less full portfolio,

  13. R Rfeuk

    Just make sure you’ll fix broken savegames into release version and I’m fine with everything else.

  14. F FerudaFarstaria

    I am very interested to see the 4k specs. The 1440p specs, and how they will work in the final game. I have a X34 Predator Gaming Monitor (widescreen) with a GTX 1070ti.

    During the closed beta in the early stages of the game I would have really high and good FPS (100+), but as I built my city, expanded it, grew bigger. I started to have issues with the FPS. Where it would dip down low to 30 FPS and even lower to 20. But if I went back out to sea away from the island, it would go back up to 70-80 FPS. There was also issues with Direct X 12 not working properly in the Closed Beta, and I had to use Direct X 11. So maybe that is why I had that happen?

    I am very curious to see how the graphics react not only in the Open Beta, but also the final game. I am hoping for improvement from the closed beta, as I like to play on High settings so that I can fully enjoy how beautiful the game is in those settings. I really love the beauty of the game, the level of detail, the terrain details, all of this is so beautiful. I hope the developers can give players more insight to these settings. It would really help us see what we can expect.

    Maybe they could do a benchmark and a spec list for the 1440p settings and post them to the Union??

    Looking forwards to the Open Beta. Will be sure to give it a try for sure! ^.^

  15. k kozzy420

    Keep up the good work devs! Can’t wait for this game, LOVE the anno games!

    I see the requirements for 1080p, but 1440p will be supported right? What about 144hz monitor? thanks!

    Can’t wait to try the beta and the full game!

  16. M MaxOpti

    Can’t wait to play, been waiting so long.

  17. M MaxaryKo

    Nice!
    Any rewards for those who participated in the Closed Beta and post bugs? 🙂

  18. b banan1996.1996

    Can’t wait to play!
    I’m surprised that we’re still limited to the 3rd tier but since the release is so soon after the beta… At least i will be able to check the optimisation and multiplayer.

    I was hoping for carrying the save games to the full game but now I understand why it’s impossible. I’m really glad you explained it instead of just informing us about the decision.

    I love the chess ornament, I used to play chess a lot, it’s a cool ornament.

    I have Intel HD Graphics 4600 in my laptop but I also have NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M so… I hope it will work smoothly 😀

  19. T Teadrinker007

    If we’ve pre ordered on steam do we have no way of accessing the open beta and chess table bonus item?

    • B BB_CR

      While the Open Beta won’t be available on Steam, it is not tied to any pre-orders. Anyone can participate, no matter if they have pre-ordered the game or not. So you can play the Open Beta on Uplay, and the full game later on Steam if you have it pre-ordered there.

      Hope that helps.

      Best,
      Marcel

      • n nosnibor2000

        Will we still have the chess table tied to our account since were on steam? It’s just tied to the uplay account right? So downloading it on steam and connecting we should still have it?

        • T Thrills77

          Launching the game from Steam just launches the game from uplay, so yes you should still get the chess table and have access to any other ubisoft club rewards

  20. K KnockKnockP

    gotta claim that chessboard as soon as possible

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