Happy Birthday, Anno 1800!

Hello Anno Community,

it’s crazy how fast the time has passed already. For us, it feels like Anno 1800 was released just yesterday. In reality, it’s been two years since we first dove deep into the age of the Industrial Revolution together.

We love remembering how much fun Anno 1800 was already in development and then directly after its release. So, on the occasion of its second birthday we’d like to share a few stories with you! Grab a beverage of your choice, sit back and enjoy this glimpse into our team’s favorite moments that came about in the course of Anno 1800.

Johannes, Software Developer, would like to share a few moments from the development of the game with you:

In the course of developing the game, various scenarios had to be tested. A colleague had to test what happens when you start a multiplayer game and change the system time in the middle of it. Therefore, he had to work for two days with the wrong system time and never knew, what time it was in reality . As a reward for solving this rather strenuous task and so that he always knows what time it is in the future, we gave him a clock. The clock doesn’t just show the time, it tells you what time it is by computer voice when you press it. In the end, the whole office had something to gain from this.

In the course of development, we had first programmed groups of people and then later added animals. On the first day, when the graphic designers added the new chicken asset, there was no special code for it. This meant that the chickens behaved just like the humans. This, combined with the fact that we had set the number a bit too high, meant that in the Daily version, because of the family group system, the streets were suddenly crowded with chicken gangs. Of course, this was fixed in development, but it still contributed a lot to the general amusement of the team.

Jan Gihr, one of our Gameplay Programmers, also remembers it:

The animals also had the behavior of normal humans at that time. That means that they visited the zoo and the museum just like humans do, for example. We had a lot of fun with that.

Another nice moment was when we realized that the First Person Mode was well received by the players. We even added some fun interactions into the game especially for that. There was once a situation in a stream where a streamer was walking down the street in First Person Mode and turned around. He saw a man take out his fishing rod and start fishing in the fountain in the center of town. While this wasn’t an intentional feature, it was still very funny to watch.

Of course, Anno 1800 didn’t just provide fun moments during the development phase. Andrea Fricke, one of our Game Designers, has fond memories of the time when Anno 1800 was released:

When Anno 1800 came out in retail stores (which is really still a thing in Germany ?), some of us went to our electronic store to check out the physical copies of our game. We went to the correct floor, excitedly going down the escalators, and spotted a cardboard display, completely customized like the cover of Anno 1800. We screamed a little, still didn’t want to appear like lunatics to other customers in the store, and ran towards it. It wasn’t fully stocked yet, and since we all wore Anno 1800 t-shirts, an employee rather quickly realized that we are developers of that game. He brought more copies of the game, we helped fill up the display, were grinning and hugging each other happily, and took photos in front of it.

After Anno 1800 came out, my sister (living in a different town) told me: When she is in an electronic store and sees Anno 1800 on the shelves, all stacked in just one spot, she spreads out the multiple copies over several spots of the display, so that Anno 1800 takes up more space on the shelves!

When Anno 1800 won 4 out of 5 awards for which it was nominated at the “Deutscher Entwicklerpreis” in 2020, naturally only some of us could go to the award show. When we returned with the awards, we made a tour through the studio with the awards, looking into happy grinning faces that ran towards us and wanted to hold the awards in their hands and make group photos of each other. “I want to make a photo with this, and then with that, and with those colleagues, and now with the other ones!” We congratulated each other, everybody was smiling and grinning, we made big group photos as well, and celebrated the success.

Oh, right, we almost forgot: As a small “thank you” for the great cooperation, we want to give you a small glimpse into what’s to come as part of the new DLC „Tourist Season”: One of the new buildings, the Chemical Factory, will play a major role when it comes to addressing your tourists’ needs. How exactly? More to follow over the next weeks!