- Announcement
- Union Update
Union Update – An update on Anno 2070’s online services
Hello Anno Community,
Today we are informing you thatΒ Ubisoft has decided to decommission online services for some older games on September 1st, including Anno 2070. You can find the full list of all impacted games here. And, as you know, Anno 2070 has several features tied to its online services.
That said, after an initial investigation, we have decided to dedicate some of our development resources to work on upgrading Anno 2070βs aged online services infrastructure to a new system, so that these features can continue to be used past the mentioned date. However, we cannot yet guarantee that weβll be able to successfully upgrade/replace the old services as we’d like to.
Please note that until September 1st, the current online services will still be fully available. We will provide more detailed updates on the future of Anno 2070 in the coming weeks and months.
Thank you for your understanding.
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Hi devs!
It’s been a while now.
Do you already see the light on the end of the tunnel?
Any updates for the hopeful folks out there? π
We do π Things are looking good and we hope to have an update in the near future, yes.
Thanks a lot! π
That is GREAT! Thank you guys!
Yes please try to make everything work in an offline way. Especially the DLC and the scenario missions that unlocked special items. If push comes to shove, I can live without the ability to transfer items between sessions, although I’d be disappointed. Anno 2070 is easily one of my favorites in the series. I actually like the Anno 2070 better than Anno 1404. I know, I know, blasphemous right? So you can imagine how important it is for me to be able to play this game in it’s full glory for years to come. I’d also like the echo AbbeyRoad007 to say that I would absolutely love to see a DRM free version of 2070 released on GOG with all DLCs (especially Deep Ocean) included, all scenario maps available for unlocking special items (like Keeper) and locally stored profile progression for unlocking other special items specific to profile milestones. If you managed to pull that off, I’d happily buy Anno 2070 again on GOG. In fact, that would be an instant purchase for me.
To be honest, one of the best parts of the series. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the series, after the release of 2205 and before the release of 1800, I whiled away the time in 2070. It was a great idea about the arks and the transfer of items to them. Always before the start of the game I took some basic resources and a catalytic converter for the construction of a hydroelectric power station. It’s a pity that in 1800, instead of the ark, there is no East India Company, which the player would control and could start a new map with the resources stored on the previous one. Really hope you can keep online features. Especially career growth in factions, storage of the ark and open technologies in the academy. For now, in my eyes, 1800 is better than 2070 purely due to DLS.
I hope you can save and preserve anno 2070. I can, still remember the day I got Anno 2070. I had to go with my parents to the city, but 11 year old me did not want to. In the car ride I was playing Anno 1701 on my ds. I will admid it, my dad pirated the game and put it on a R4 card.
After a day of being bored in the city my mom wanted to reward me for being so patient all day. So she took me to the toys store. Walking into the store the first think I saw was the CD for anno 2070. At the time I thought Anno 1701 was a one time off game, but that day I discovered it was a whole series of games. I begged my mom to get it, she wanted me to get a fysical toy not a game that I probably would lose interest it quickly after.
After some nagging and bargaining she gave in and bought it. This game did learn me and got me interested into climate change, it also gave me respect to the complexity of logic systems. But little did my mom known that 21 year old me still plays this game. Mean while the toys 11 year old me was interested in, is now little more than plasic waste.
I do hope you guys make an other set into the future game like 2070 and 2205.
I genuinely hope Blue Byte are successful in their efforts to ensure that the unique features of this superb game are made available offline, so that both the current purchasers and from a historical preservation perspective, any one who gets the opportunity to play this gem in future gets to experience it in its full glory the way its developers always intended it to be played.
Without any offense to Blue Byte, it is slightly alarming and disturbing to see the approach of Ubisoft to its old games. From a consumer standpoint, am sure Blue Byte appreciates that it is a reasonable expectation of a paying customer who bought a game and all its DLC that they would continue to enjoy all of the game’s features that were present at the time they bought it (especially a primarily single-player experience such as the Anno series of games) and it is such an anti-consumer practice of Ubisoft to calmly just state that the DLC/other assorted features of a game have an expiry date.
Furthermore, I am fairly certain that things like the Ark items being available across multiple game sessions, ranking vote and rewards being on some automated basis, could have all easily been made available offline and the primary reason such features were only available online were probably meant as a DRM feature at the time of release-be that as it may, given that the DRM may have lost its value given the age of the game, hopefully Blue Byte is able to make the Ark available offline, and maybe introduce LAN multiplayer, etc. and make available a DRM free version of the game on GOG.com, like the earlier Anno games- a fan can hope, and dream! π
Last but not the least, it is very troubling to see this stance of Ubisoft from a long-term perspective. I have been a loyal customer of Blue Byte, having bought all of the Anno games, including Anno 1800 and all of its Season Passes, and all the cosmetic DLC. But now, I am worried that a few years from now, Ubisoft will just similarly pull the plug on all of these Season Passes DLC and multiplayer features and make just the base game available. Just goes to show the importance of having primary critical game features available offline, LAN multiplayer, etc. purely from a game preservation and a game experience preservation standpoint.
I quote:
“Closing the online services for some older games allows us to focus our resources on delivering great experiences for players who are playing newer or more popular titles.”.
So you give the finger to those who made you big by buying your games in the past? I bought Anno 2070 twice, once it came out on CD and once when it was availabe as the Complete edition. It is by far the best Anno with it’s future atmosphere, underwater world and beautiful soundtrack.
You better take care of your old player base, we have the right to play the games we once bought. This means:
– Items in the Ark transferable to new games;
– The ranking system and it’s rewards for the three factions;
– At least LOCAL multiplayer (I don’t give a sh** about it, but my fellow players in this thread do).
– All DLC content we purchased which includes Deep Ocean and the cosmetics.
I know how this is going to turn out. You promise the world and in the end there is nothing.
Quote: “Thank you for your understanding.”
Forgive me that I don’t understand it at all π
It’s not BlueBytes fault that Ubisoft are shutting down their server’s. At least they’re attempting to make the game available offline. Ubisoft are the company to be mad at. They don’t care about the consumer because they’re only interested in selling the new ultimate platinum pro season pass nonesense.
Other than the anno franchise, I dont buy anything from Ubisoft for this exact reason.
Hello Takingsides,
I’m sorry. I did not realize this was a message from BlueByte. Big fan since the Battle Isle series so no bad word about them!
My worries were strictly towards UBISOFT and they should care more about there older player base. Like they quote that they shutdown older games to focus on PLAYERS who are playing newer or more popular titles is just a slap in my face.
Now I know BB is taking care of this, my hope has slightly gone up. Already spent thousands and thousands of hours in Anno 2070 and still not tired of it!
Cheers.
Please do everything in your power to save Anno 2070, it’s underrated gem, let us play offline and have access to all dlcs or whatever is possible!
I hope you’ll be able to do that update. It would suck to completely lose things like the Arc or the events for good, as they were part of what made the game so enjoyable to begin with, the idea that you can bring things from past games into new games. So I hope you’ll find a solution for that, thank you for trying to fix it instead of just abandoning it!
Anno 2070 deserve to be saved, thank you for the effort!
Thx for attempting to save this. I think Anno 2070 MP is still used & especially since the game is so online-intergrated, doing this is absolutely mandatory. Otherwise I’m most likely not the only one loosing trust in online-integrated games from Ubisoft & will look twice if there’s some alternative that can do multiplayer in a more reliable way, I’m not bound to Anno 100%ly.
Anno 2070 is a legendary game. I love those temporary missions where the community worked together to achieve a global goal. It had the most multiplayer options (Spuremacy, Scenario together) so far.
But in the last years multiplayer became more and more unplayable. Having issues to connect with other players.
It is a shame you will give this beautiful game up instead of making it better.
As you can see with Anno 1800 actually continuing the development of a game can also pay out.
After I saw that the update notice “Union Update – An update on Anno 2070βs online services” I was actually hoping you would fix things and not throw them away. :/
If you read the article above, you will see that we’re trying to do exactly that.
I played the hell out of the demo for that game as a kid, needless to say i was stoked when i got the CD for christmas later that year!
1404, Settlers 7 and 2070 are by far my favorite games of all time, and seeing that efforts are being taken to keep them online warms my heart.
Atleast leave the ark accessible as a farewell gift for those who paid for it, atleast leave something for us that still play the game, the ark is one of its iconic feature that distinguishes itself from the other games in the anno series.
I did not think that in my favorite game Anno 2070, the multiplayer mode will be turned off.
I hope that you leave the opportunity to play with a friend, at least on a local network.
They especially need to care about the online-integration things or you’ll even have problems in single player.
Ich wΓΌrde es echt schade finden wenn alle meine Vortschritte und Erfolge weg wΓ€ren. Es waren doch doch viele Jahre wo ich immer wieder mal die ein oder Andere Herrausforderung angegangen bin.
Hin und wieder von der Arche und dem Save-Game-Γbertragenen Items die ich erforscht habe mit zu nehmen war auch fΓΌr entspanntes Spielen super.
Seeing that this is now the status quo for Ubisoft, I don’t really see any point in purchasing any more of their products – including Anno games. Sorry, but why buy something that will be “sunsetted” in 10 years?
There really needs to be a better system, and I’m gonna vote with my wallet.
And before anyone says that 10 years is a huge length of time, it honestly isn’t.
For a video game, 10 years is absolutely a huge length of time. Games that are finished and no longer being actively supported usually pull the plug in 5 or less.
Also why don’t you wait for that update they’re making and see what that brings before you complain? You don’t even know what parts of the game that will salvage.
It’s not a huge length of time at all. I can still play games I enjoyed from 1995 and 1999, and do regularly. Active development has long since stopped, the plug was ‘pulled’, and yet here I am. Playing away. But only Ubisoft seems to think that they can just steal something I bought and paid for.
Amen to that.
I hope you guys can update the game, so we dont lose it. The best solution would be having private servers option, so we can keep the game alive. Maybe a few more updates can lead to a Remastered edition with private servers option?
ΠΡ …… ΠΆΠ°Π»Ρ, ΡΡΠΎ ΡΠ±Π΅ΡΡΡ ΡΠ΅ΡΠ΅Π²ΡΡ ΠΈΠ³ΡΡ =( Π 2070 Π±ΡΠ»ΠΎ ΠΈΠ½ΡΠ΅ΡΠ΅ΡΠ½ΠΎ ΠΈΠ³ΡΠ°ΡΡ Ρ Π΄ΡΡΠ·ΡΡΠΌΠΈ
Is there any chance that Anno 2070 could also be available on GOG, like how Anno 1404 and some of the older Anno games are?
If they will be moving the multiplayer to the new system that would be great but some like me who not finished an entire game of Anno 2070 lol even though I’ve owned it for so many years and have the original CD version also and would love to unlock the multiplayer achievements and gifts associated with the game eventually.
So, I hope you spare the game and put it on the new multiplayer platform for all us anno-fans enjoy long after the game has been supported, but till then I’ll have to enjoy what time we have to unlock these multiplayer goodies, thank you for the warning though π
It would be awesome, if this jewel can be saved!
I still have the original DVD of this one, and of course its expansion pack. π
We tried to play this in co-op just a few weeks ago, but some random errors hindered the multiplayer connection. We managed to start a game after a lot of port tweaking in Windows and our routers, but it did not last long as we were unable to continue the saved session the other day due to more error messages and weird connectivity issues.
Anyway, it is nice that there is some hope that we will be able to enjoy this unique Anno in co-op again.
Wishing you all success in your endeavours to fix it! π