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.
It’s a busy day, as we have a ton of new content and features for Anno 1800, so let’s dive right in to give you all the details you need! All of the below will go live today, December 10, at 6pm CET/ 5PM UTC/ 12pm EST/ 9AM PST.
The Passage DLC (part of the Anno 1800 Season Pass or 14.99€/$ stand-alone purchase)
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Construct arctic outposts in an all-new arctic session and bring them to life with the new Explorer and Technician residential tiers.
Conquer the skies
Construct a fleet of airships to speed up the trade across all sessions of your empire.
New Arctic goods
Master new production chains and arctic trade goods such as Pemmican, parkas and husky sleds.
Crucial warmth
Use the new heating system to ensure your residents survive the brutal cold of the Passage.
More industrial adventure
Take your Anno 1800 experience to the next level with over 60 new quests and over 80 new items.
Holiday Pack DLC (3.99€/$ stand-alone purchase)
Short description:
Bring the spirit of the holidays to Anno 1800 with this new cosmetic DLC pack, which includes 23 new ornaments that allow you to decorate your cities in festive style.
A festive carousel, including fan favorite vehicles from the game.
Two Christmas trees, to fit the occasion.
Santa’s Grotto, giving your citizens a chance to share their wish lists with him.
Three different markets stalls for your very own Christmas market.
A jolly hoard of Christmas presents
Two festively ornamented street lanterns.
An appropriately wintery snowman ornament.
A decorated hedge system with six tiles.
A decorated fence system with six tiles.
Game Update 6 (4.8GB download)
This free Game Update includes several much requested features, including the co-op multiplayer mode, in-depth statistics and a multi-copy tool for buildings.
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!
We are just one more week away from embarking on our big arctic adventure, making it the perfect time to give you some more updates on The Passage and Game Update 6, and what content you can expect for the rest of this week.
While last week’s Devblog and live streams already gave you a good overview of what to expect from the new update, we know that many of you are looking forward to seeing the full release notes for Game Update 6. You will soon be able to do so, as we will release them here on the Anno Union on Friday, December 6.
Originally, we had also planned to publish a dedicated statistics and co-op DevBlog, but after showing of many of the features in the last AnnoCast, we realized that, given the nature of the statistics feature, showing it in action is worth more than a thousand words of DevBlogs.
So, if you want to pass the time until you ca get your own hands on all the new statistics, you can relive last week’s AnnoCast live stream, where a group of developers spent almost two hours showing off a lot of the new content and features, right here.
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Once again, we will send a group of brave explorers on their way into the frozen north to broadcast their adventures on Twitch. During this Event, you will be able to watch how a variety of selected Twitch Streamers try to open the Northwest Passage. Doing so can reward you with two brand new ornaments: the Anno Union flag and the Passage billboard.
The only thing you need to do is link your Uplay to your Twitch account and watch the streamers during the event for up to 3 hours to receive your loot. But wait, there is one change to the last events: you won’t have to watch consecutive hours anymore to receive your drop; watching the hours accumulated on participating streamers will grant you the ornaments.
Last but not least, our friends from the Annoverse Fan Discord made the recordings of our AMA session from November 25. available for everyone. If you missed the event or want to listen to the lengthy AMAs again, you can do so now here: To the English Roundtable Recording To the German Roundtable Recording
And if you like the idea to get in touch with like-minded Annoholics, even though it could mean that you loose one or more evenings in lengthy chat discussions about your favorite title of the series, consider joining the Annoverse community.
Dearest Elaine, I’ve few breaths left. I die never having found a Passage, but then no glory awaits any servant of Sir John. He was certain the ice would not thicken around us in Spring. Fate of expedition now rests on circumnavigation of Terrier Island by short, perilous west shore, or by long, open east channel— fear I know what Sir John will prefer. Farewell my Elaine.
The frozen north, a final frontier many felt it was their destiny to conquer, whether in the name of science, or for fame and riches. The “Northwest Passage” was a fabled sea route through the Arctic that promised to connect opposite sides of the Northern Hemisphere, conferring great wealth upon anyone brave enough to take an expedition deep into the ice.
From lush jungles to the frozen wastes – A chilling change of scenery Our third and biggest Season Pass DLC, “The Passage,” tells a story of bravery and hardship, inspired by the valiant souls who risked their life in the name of progress, and tasks you to establish an outpost in the Arctic Circle. The sight of the eerie and beautiful wilderness invites everyone to follow in the footsteps of the Arctic explorers of the 19th century, while seasoned Anno players can look forward to an exciting challenge with a worthy payoff at the end.
The Arctic biome is a welcome change to the milder climate of the Old World and the hot and humid islands in the New World. Frozen shores under a dark sky, this barren wasteland allows us to tell a different kind of tale than you might be used to in Anno 1800™, and the harsh weather conditions offer interesting new gameplay elements. Our goal was that conquering the Arctic session should be an exciting endeavor as it will require you to rethink your strategies, away from raising big cities to carefully maintaining an outpost in a seemingly hostile environment.
The new campaign chapter of The Passage will send you on a rescue mission of an Arctic expedition. Inspired by the events of the Franklin Expedition, searching for Sir John and his crew will unfold a dramatic series of events with an unclear outcome.
We need to keep our people warm – managing an Arctic outpost With much potential for striking visuals and room for interesting gameplay additions, we knew that the Arctic biome would be a perfect opportunity to play around with new gameplay mechanics. The new region should be an exciting adventure for everyone but a true challenge for achievers who want to conquer the wasteland in order to reap significant rewards.
Harsh weather conditions are your dire enemy in the north and the new heating mechanic will challenge you to rethink the way you used to create layouts in order to keep your residents warm and healthy. The two new residential tiers, explorers and technicians, are audacious adventurers who, in the name of progress, turned their back to the amenities and comfort of the modern city life.
While their population needs reflect rather pragmatic necessities, the wasteful luxury goods got replaced by the much more urgent need for heat. Residential buildings as well as production facilities need to be connected to a heat source to function properly, with the new category of goods providing additional ways of keeping your residents warm and heathy. The new heaters serve here as the foundation, radiators which allow you to provide a basic level of heat for every building in the vicinity. Like the electric power plant, it automatically places heat pipes along the street network, and thus is relying on street distance rather than a radius. But as its effectiveness is limited, maintaining and expanding your outpost becomes a jigsaw puzzle of proper space and heat management.
The Northern Hemisphere is an icy wasteland, and construction space, as well as basic resources, are sparse. Heaters operate by burning coal, which is hard to come by and requires you to construct charcoal kilns in the sparsely populated woods on islands located on the south or to import coal from the Old World all the way back to your Arctic outpost. New goods such as sleeping bags or parkas will provide an additional source of comfort and thus let the heat meter rise. If you won’t be able to connect buildings to a heater, or if your fuel support falters, goods can provide a sufficient level of heat depending how well you can or want to supply your Arctic residents. But with decreasing temperatures, the risk for a dreaded disease rises: The Arctic Flu. Similar to the illness in the Old World at first glance, the Arctic Flu is a much more dire opponent for your residents due to the harsh living conditions in the North. It spreads faster, is more resilient and has the potential to not only paralyze your fickle northern infrastructure but will also take its toll on your Arctic population. So keep your toes warm to avoid a nasty surprise in the morning.
Adapted to the permafrost – new buildings and production chains Other than constructing heaters,your outpost will give you access to several new buildings and production chains adapted to the life up north. The Ranger Station will not only keep an eye out for fires in your outpost, it also provides medical support for your sick explorers, while the Canteen serves as a social gathering hub but also replaces the marketplace by issuing food and other goods. The Post Office is a new cultural need, allowing your researchers to stay in contact with their friends and families back home. Population needs are as pragmatic as the fight against the freezing temperatures. To support your researchers with a steady supply of jerky, hunting cabins send out rangers to hunt for caribous, whale oil fuels your brass lamps and bear and seal pelts allow you to produce parkas and sleeping bags. But it is hard to survive up there without help from the Old World, and you will need to import canned food provisions and, as you can imagine, Arctic explorers don’t like if their schnapps flask runs dry.
To keep things going, your technicians found a new way of transportation for your snow-covered streets: the husky sled. Your trusty four-legged companions serve not only as a need for your technicians, they also provide satisfying visual feedback in your outpost. Over time, your outpost will grow, and what seems like a barren wasteland for us is called home by others. The Inuit, a new third-party trader, are willing to trade when your stock runs low, as well as offer a variety of new items especially useful in the Northern Hemisphere.
As soon as you overcome the struggle and the daily life on the ice becomes normality, you will find that the Arctic also has plenty to offer. The North can become a profitable hunting ground for precious pelts and there are some especially rich gold deposits, which promise a more efficient supply of the rare metal than your mines in the New World. You will also be able to collect new sets for your museum and your zoo to allow your residents back home to get a grasp of this strange and wild place.
But you are not alone, as news about the natural resources spread quickly and as such, second-party characters will follow you on your path into the Passage to start their own settlements.
Conquering the sky – the Airship Hangar For the ones overcoming the challenges of the hostile environment, a big payoff awaits: the Airship! Inspired by actual historical efforts to building zeppelins in the Arctic to avoid the brash ice, the Airship Hangar is the new monument coming with The Passage. Building this technical marvel will be a huge undertaking, as it requires you to import a lot of construction material from your larger cities in the South in order to finish the four construction stages of the monument. Once you finish the Airship Hangar, of which you will be able to build one in every Arctic settlement, you can start to construct your first airship.
Airships are the ultimate endgame vessel for your trade routes, but they are costly to construct. It not only takes a long time to build one, you also need a new resource to fill their balloons during construction: gas. While your old companion Nate happily supports your first prototype with a shipment of gas, the resource itself exists only in the northern region of the Arctic: to be precise, on barren ice cliffs. Without any real beach for ships to land, and missing any fundamental resources to construct a settlement, these islands are out of reach for any traditional vessel. If you dream of your own fleet of airships, you must claim the icy cliffs and establish your mining outposts with the help of an airbridge.
Airships can safely avoid pirates, and can take direct routes just over islands instead of slowly maneuvering around them. They have also a total of 4 cargo and 2 item slots. However, they are also more strongly affected by wind, and their unloading and loading process naturally takes more time than with a traditional ship.
But airships are not the only new addition to optimize your endgame logistics. Once transported into the Old World, the gas comes in handy if you build one of the new progressive gas powerplants. More effective than their oil-running cousins, the gas powerplant can operate without relying on trains to constantly feed their burners. If you can establish a trade route ensuring a steady supply of gas, the new powerplant can free up important space in your metropolis. But beware: as the gas is a rare resource, you probably must make tough decisions where it makes most sense to replace your old oil plants.
And while talking about technical progress, your scientific endeavors inspired our old friend Nate to work in new inventions, which will expand the crafting list for items you are not limited to use in the Arctic session.
An adventure of epic proportion awaits The Passage is not only our biggest DLC yet, it is also a true passion project from the team. From the atmosphere, to the details to the amount of content coming with the final Season Pass content, we are eager to see how you like our adventure into the frozen wilds. With hundreds of Union members playtesting the content, it is also a true community project and shows how much influence you continue to have on Anno 1800 and its extended content.
Our third Season Pass DLC, The Passage, will release December 10th along with Game Update 6. The Passage expands the content of Anno 1800 with: – A new Arctic gameplay session – Rescue Sir Johns crew in a new story chapter for Anno 1800 – 2 new Residential Tiers: the Explorers and the Technicians – 32 new Buildings, 7 new production chains and 13 new production goods – Over 60 new quests – Fight the cold with the new heating systems – Construct your airship trade fleet in the new Airship Hangar monument
Until next time, when we will share the full list of changes and free content coming with Game Update 6!
End of October, we invited the Anno Union to go with us on an expedition to test the waters of the upcoming DLC The Passage as well as Game Update 6. Over the last couple of weeks, hundreds of Union members tested the upcoming content inside out and provided a huge amount of valuable feedback and reports. After weeks of analyzing your feedback and working on improvements and polishing, it’s now time to break the silence and open the doors of our testing vault, sharing the next steps for the Union and the upcoming content for Anno 1800.
AnnoAfternoon: The Sunken Dragon – Friday 22.11 at 5PM CET After barely escaping a burning city with their settlers, Community Manager Oli and Anno veteran Wolfgang are looking for a new home in Anno 1701. And wasn’t there also something about a mysterious artefact…?
AnnoCast: The Passage – Wednesday 27.11 at 5pm – 7pm CET Don’t forget to pack your parka as it is about to get cold. We thought “Show don’t tell” is the best approach and therefore, we will bring you the next AnnoCast already next week! Join us on an adventure to our arctic outpost to see the Passage and Game Update 6 (this includes a lot of sweet statistics) in action while we answer your most burning questions. You really don’t want to miss this one, as we plan to have a bunch of developers on camera in this almost two-hour long episode.
AnnoAfternoon: “In den kalten Norden” – German Episode – Friday 29.11 at 5pm CET And right after our developer stream, our community team will follow up with a new stream, this time with a special German episode in the frozen wasteland. So not only a good chance to take a look at the Passage after our developer stream, the team is eager to answer your questions or pass your feedback on to the developers.
And as we love that outside window from our studio into the outside window, we are always eager for feedback about our content. Give the channel a follow if you don’t want to miss any future episodes.
Union Talk Episode 4 With the Anno Union, we invited you all to help us developing the next big Anno game. And in that spirit, we love to share as many development insights as possible. In the now fourth episode of our developer podcast, we talk about the postlaunch journey of Anno 1800, conceptions and misconceptions about developing content after the big release and how we continue to work with your input and feedback.
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And as this is a passion project from the development team for the Union, let us know if you would love to see more Union Talks in future and feel free to share your opinion on the topic matter of the latest podcast.
We will also drop new DevBlog’s in the upcoming weeks, where we talk about the development and show gameplay elements of the Passage as well as Game Update 6. Keep a keen eye on the Union for upcoming blogs and of course, we will soon share when The Passage and GU6 lands on your PC.
Annoverse Discord Roundtable Monday 25.11 at 7pm CET And because feedback and communication matters, our Community Developer Basti and Community Manager Oli join another round of the Annoverse Discord Roundtable. The Roundtable is an AMA session in our Anno Fandiscord, where everyone can join asking us anything while the team answers your questions in Voice Chat, if it is development or community related.
The Annoverse Discord is an great meetup place for great Annoholics new and old and we want to say thank you for the continues community support and for the hosting of the Roundtables. In that vein, we strongly encourage you to jump in the Discord yourself, as you will find hundreds of like minded Annoholics there to chat about anything Anno (and more)!
And that was it for this weeks Update but as you can see, it was mere the beginning. You can look forward to a lot of new and insightful content in the upcoming weeks to get you all prepared for journey into the frozen north – Winter is coming, after all!
Once again we want to share a community update with you, showcase some great Anno 1800 impressions from our community and let you know about our streaming plans. Let’s go!
Anno Afternoon Stream – Retro Edition
This Friday, we’re changing things up with the Anno Afternoon. After noticing that Ubi-Thorlof has never played Ubi-Trenchcoat’s favourite game of the series – Anno 1701 – they spontaneously decided to do a retro stream! Tune in on the 8th at 4PM UTC (5PM CET) when they’ll be diving into the The Sunken Dragon campaign.
Playtest und Game Update 6.0
The Game Update 6.0 playtest has started last week and is going very well. A big thank you to everyone who already provided their feedback in the dedicated forums. If you haven’t already – let us know your thoughts!
And if you have signed up for the playtest but haven’t received an invite yet: Do not worry. We will send another wave of invites in the coming week.
Parallel to the test our team continues their work on the Update including the third DLC, coming out in December. We will share more information regarding all the features and a precise date closer to release.
Community Spotlight
Let’s again round things up by featuring some the cities you built and the experiences you shared.
ClassicReddltor is extremely happy about finally getting the Extravaganza Steamer, posing in front of his massive city. How many of you already managed to get hold of this proud ship?
For friends of grapes and champagne, a visit to Conschbourg – the Green City – might be a good idea. Spacer176 also provides you with a tourist guide and a history lesson of this town.
If you’re more of a fan cities, you should probably plan a trip to DerGrindelwutz’s and RegalSeagull’s versions of Crown Falls. With plenty of parks, promenades along the river islands and bridges in front of the waterfall panorama, these cities simply invite you to take a long walk.
As a stark contrast to these peaceful views, cjnewson88 seems to have a few issues with his rioting populace.
But he later explains his city setup and the strategy behind his success – well worth a read.
That’s already it for this week’s Union Update!
Feel free to share your adventures and achievements with us on social or reddit and don’t forget to tune in to tomorrow’s stream.
We’re back once more with a community update and some info on what to expect from us in the near future.
Anno Afternoon Stream
This Friday, Seraxia and Thorlof will put their creative hats on (most likely not literally) in another Anno Afternoon and try something completely different. You want to know more? Then don’t miss out this special livestream episode and tune on the 25th at 4PM UTC+1 (5PM CEST).
And if you got any cool or funny ideas for future streams, what better opportunity to share them with us than this Friday?
Playtest beginning next week!
As you all know the next playtest is just around the corner and as we work together with the community to get a jam-packed Game Update 6 ready for December, we will take a short break from Union blogs in the upcoming week. But worry not, we will be back soon with community news and new game information.
And we already got some exciting news this week! Keep an eye on your inbox, cause for a first wave of players the the playtest will already start next week – more invite-waves will follow.
We’re very much looking forward to your feedback. So, when we’re already talking about GU6 and The Passage, why not hop over to Reddit. Some of you already started a discussion about the content of the DLC there. We might have some theories ourselves but it’s far more exciting to read your predictions. Which features and production chains do YOU think will be added with The Passage?
Community Content
Something that impressed all of us quite a bit was jasperwillem not only managing to get this settlement to house Engineers without ever visiting the New World but shortly after also luring Investors into ‘Golden City’.
How many of us spent long nights outsourcing production chains and setting up new trade routes. Or planting hedge rows for hours for that perfect inner-city park or the world’s best botanical garden. We bet there are some quirky challenges or legendary achievements you set yourself in the past or future. So, share them with us in the comments below!
Fitting to last week’s blog about the Day & Night Cycle, we also want to use this blog to share some impressions from the community. Apparently some of you have a weird fascination with exploding factories…but admittedly, fires look very cool at night:
That’s it for this Community Update. Did you already share your favourite moments with us? Be it day or night, dusk or dawn, we always love to see what fantastic scenes you manage to capture.
The invention of the light bulb was more than a mere boon to comfort and luxury. This new way of illuminating the darkness was also an inspiring force for creative minds and a motor for the industry, unshackling them from the natural rhythm of day and night. With electricity playing such an important role in Anno 1800’s economy, there was a strong desire from our community to have a true day and night cycle in the game. Finally, this wish became reality with Game Update 4. As the days are getting ever shorter, what better time to shine a light on this major visual update than in today’s DevBlog!
A true passion project for the players – the beginnings
Since the early days of development, we had been toying with the idea to add a day & night cycle to Anno 1800, similar to the one from 2205. In reality, game development often means throwing a lot of ideas onto a wall and then deciding which ones may be a crucial must-have features, while others end up on a potential “nice to have later” list. While the day & night originally did not make the cut, many Union members told us repeatedly that they would love to see a return of that feature to the series.
Therefore, when some members of our art team had a bit of time available after launch, they immediately set out to realize this previously scraped idea from the early days of Anno 1800. This plan was quickly validated by the modding community jumping on the topic, which showed the big interest in having this functionality in Anno 1800.
Let there be light – developing the Day & Night feature
As is often the case, our artists are perfectionists once they have their hearts set on a topic.So it was clear from the get-go that an official day & night cycle could not simply be about adding a dark night, and sun and moon cycles. Instead, almost every asset players can build would have to be reworked to make sure they look their best, no matter the time of day. Ranging from new glowing textures for illuminated windows to tons of new light sources to ships sailing the nocturnal oceans, we added over 1000 new light sources and changed more than 200 existing assets to provide the intended ambience during the night.
We also had to ensure that the new light sources would start shining during specific times of the day and account for the additional gloom of our dusk and sunset scenarios. In the 19th century, cityscapes started to change drastically with the introduction of the lightbulb. We depicted this in the game world with a more blueish tint to our electric light sources, as opposed to the warmer, yellowish light of candles and fireplaces; this way, a heavily industrialized metropolis will look and feel notably different from a rural hamlet’s atmosphere.
Here you can see how we manually setup a new light source!
Our modern cities are awash with artificial light during the night but back then, they were comparatively sparsely illuminated. Once more, we decided for a tradeoff: we wanted to create an appealing contrast to the darkness while we also did not want to outright dismiss that feeling of a gone century in the midst of transformation into the modern world.
Players would also expect that their city would appear much quieter during the night, but Anno’s cityscapes are normally famously bustling with life. As a result, we had to send our feedback units through another development pass, where we had to reduce the overall amount of residents following their daily business while again, adding and altering light sources. As a result, the streets are less crowded during the late hours. You may also notice some other subtle changes, such as removing the kids from the schoolyard during the night or adding more musicians to the pub to let it appear livelier in the after work hours.
Our tools allowed us to precisely define the tinting of each time of day.
Finally but crucially, we wanted to give the player full control over the scenery. For that, we had to program the functionality to allow them to change the time of day at their convenience or to go for one of our presets, such as daylight, dusk, dawn or midnight. While we decided to make the night hours shorter than the actual day for gameplay convenience, players would also be able to decide to stop the cycle altogether to enjoy their sunset for as long as they like.
It’s not always style over substance – Impact on Gameplay
While changing hundreds of assets manually was a huge albeit worthwhile task, there was more to it than just adding another layer of visual fidelity. In a game like Anno, readability is an important factor to provide a satisfying gameplay experience.
While various tooltips and windows help you to keep an overview about events in your empire, the game also transmits a lot of information through visual feedback happening in your city. A night setting naturally makes it much harder to read what is going on, which necessitated the addition of all these new light sources to make sure that you could still identify all buildings, and not lose track of your ships.
We also played around with ideas how the shift from day to the midst of the night could affect gameplay, and while it would open many possibilities, we realized that doing so would simply add a lot of unnecessary micromanagement, without actually benefiting the overall game experience and player fantasy.
Day & Night, a joint effort
While we have primarily talked about our artists, the day & night update was a collaborative effort from the whole Anno team, drawing on all disciplines from art and engine R&D (research and development) to programming and interface. Judging by the countless of majestically lighted nocturnal cityscapes we have seen online, we are very happy with the results of this effort, and hope you agree as well.
What is your preferred time of day for your empire? And do you make extensive active use of the options available, or do you just roll with the natural rhythm of night and day? Let us know in the comments below!
