DevBlog: The “End of an Era” Pack CDLC

Hello Anno Community,

As you might have seen in our latest teasers on social media or yesterday’s  livestream, we will soon release a brand new Cosmetic DLC, the “End of an Era” Pack!

To be totally honest with you all, when first approaching this DevBlog, we struggled to find the right words to talk about it and give this Pack full justice – both because of its grandiosity and the fact that it marks, for real, the end of an era. If you don’t know this already, this CDLC will be the last piece of content developed for Anno 1800, after an amazing journey that lasted 5 years, with 16 beautiful Cosmetic DLC – not to mention the post-launch game content released over the years.

… *Nervously clears throat* … But let’s not get emotional now, we haven’t even started talking about the Pack! So, without further ado, let’s join the festival.

“A crazy unicorn festival of lights, flowers and dancing”

In this pack there are Funfair Stalls for all necessities, big and small: whether your residents would like to smash some unicorn pinatas, eat some food or enjoy the famous Anno c*cktail at the c*cktail Bar – the Margarita Hunt – for an evening of fun, the End of an Era Pack contains everything you’ll need to build the perfect festival in your Anno cities.

For the residents who enjoy movement, a Dance Floor is in order – together with a Beer Tent for when they need a break and a fresh drink after all the late-night waltzes.

Flowers are a central theme of this pack as you might have noticed: Lily Pond Lights, Dazzling Dandelions, and colourful Fairy Flowers installations – each of them with multiple variations. And who knew flowers could pair this well with an Aquatic Streetlights and an Aquatic Light Tunnel?

A burst of colours and pure joy

Anno 1800 looks SO stylish in neon pink, don’t you think? Or neon blue, green, yellow… all the colours! Well, colours extravaganza is another recurring theme in this pack. Engineers’ and Investors’ residences have never looked this great – and so sparkly!

“The Jorgensens – The Musical” in Theatre now!

Fun for the whole family: the latest musical masterpiece starring Bente Jorgensen, Sir Archibald Blake, Carl Leonard von Malching (and his pink tutu), and The One True God of Anno, is in theatre now! Treat your residents to a show they will never forget, thanks to the Musical Stage included in this pack. Some of you might remember “The Jorgensens – The Musical” from the credits scene in Anno 1800, which was masterfully recreated by the talented Laura in this shorter version for the ornament (more info on this in the Q&A section). And do not worry about limited seating for the show, we even included an Auditorium to accommodate a big audience.

Paint your sky with fireworks

What kind of festival would it be without fireworks closing the night? Actually, let us rephrase that – what kind of End of an Era Pack would it be without fireworks celebrating the support you’ve showed us for the past 5 years? These fireworks will paint your Anno sky with our gratitude and appreciation, as well as… flying pigs and unicorns? (Editor’s note: no animals or magical creatures were harmed during the production of this CDLC)

Q&A with Laura

And now, it is time for our favourite part: Q&A with the Art Team! We asked some questions to Laura, Prop Artist and CDLC Overlord on Anno, to get some insights on the creative process behind the End of an Era Pack.

 

Q: It seems that you had a lot of fun creating this pack! What were the main sources of inspiration for it?

A: So, after some brainstorming the decision was made: we wanted to go out with a big festive bang, a celebration of Anno and the Players and since it would release around Christmas time the first source of inspiration had to be fairy lights, lots of lights in the dark, like a Christmas Wonderland kind of theme. But the idea of another Christmas Package didn`t quite do it for us, so we went ahead and made it into, what I call, “a crazy unicorn festival of lights, flowers and dancing“. Luckily, I had been to Tokyo earlier in the year and took away quite some inspiration from the teamLab Exposition, which is an amazing thing, everybody who can go see, do it! So, in short, the main sources of inspiration would be a mad mix of Christmas Wonderland sparkle and the fantastic teamLab Tokyo.

 

Q: What was the hardest ornament or skin to create? Why?

A: In terms of designing, the hardest were actually the tiny festive stalls. We have so many stalls in the game already, it was quite hard to come up with something completely new. So, after initial rather tame designs, I decided to go more bonkers with this and make them out to be weird, dreamy flowers from the top view, which in the end fit in quite well with the flowery overall theme.

 

Q: This CDLC is filled with content, which ornament or skin is your favourite? Is there a particular reason?

A: I think I have two favourites. The first will be the blue lights tunnel with the goldfish “swimming through”, just because I would love to go through there in real life, sit down and just endlessly look at it. The second one are the waterlilies. They just look so pretty, better even in the dark and if precious production time was spent with a darkened monitor and only those lilies on the screen staring back at me…. It was…. Ehm… I was quality checking them, yeah…

Q: How was it to work on the last CDLC for Anno 1800? It’s literally the end of an era!

A: Working on it was great, as is true for most of the CDLCs. It’s true though that this time around there was mixed in a hint of sadness, to let my precious CDLC-babies go, to let go of my self-organised authoritarian overlord state, and the uncertainty of what would come next-task wise didn`t help either. But there was also relief, because it grew so hard to come up with new, purely cosmetic ideas. So, it was a c*cktail of emotions, but staring at the waterlilies soothed about everything.

 

Q: Flying pigs fireworks?! We love them! But why?

A: Well…. Only when the pigs learn to fly, will there be an end to Anno 1800!

 

Q: How complex was it to create the theatre ornament?

A: The Theatre was a self-evolving, not-certain-to-be-created-at-all kind of thing. We wanted to have a really big festive tent as a main attraction, but it ended up looking a lot like a circus tent no matter what. And I had been having this idea to bring the credits into the CDLC (because “The End”…), so I just threw the two of them together, the big tent with the theatre stage in front of it and there it was. What was a bit tedious was the animation of the puppets, which I did frame by frame imitating the exact movie animation. That took a lot of endurance… But the result was quite worthwhile, I think. So yes, it was the most complex ornament to do in this package, but also the most rewarding.

 

Q: Which Anno 1800 CDLC would you combine with this one to decorate your own city?

A: Well, this is something that I do really like about this package in particular, that it is so very universally combinable with a lot of the stuff we already have in the game. Be it the Holiday -, the Amusement -, the City Lights -Pack or the Seasonal Decorations, even the Chinese New Year Pack CDLC or the ornaments from the High Life DLC, you can just build a huge festival throughout the city, throw in basically everything: the madder, the better.

What’s left to say? We could write words and words about how weird it feels to be writing the last DevBlog for Anno 1800, and how bittersweet it is to be at the end of this journey – but that’s for another day.

The End of an Era Pack will be available starting December 5th on PC and Consoles, for the usual price of 4.99€ or your regional equivalent.

We cannot wait to admire your festival-ready cities in Anno 1800!

List of full content

• Musical stage
• Auditorium
• Dance Floor
• Beer tent (2 variants)
• Lily Pond Lights (4 variants)
• Dazzling Dandelions (3 variants)
• Wisp Lanterns (4 variants)
• Fairy Flowers (4 variants)
• Flowery Funfair Stall (2 variants)
• Unicorn Funfair Stall (2 variants)
• c*cktail Bar
• Sunflower Swing
• Aquatic Streetlights (2 variants)
• Fireworks Podium (2 variants)
• Aquatic Light Tunnel (3 variants)
• Festive Light Tunnel
• Funfair Arch (3 variants)
• Balloon Pole (2 variants)
• Flower Power Flag
• Large Banner (4 variants)
• Bunting (2 variants)
• Sun Gate
• Umbrella Seats (4 variants)
• Iluminatree (3 variants)
• Parade Pavement (4 variants)
• Glowing Garlands (3 variants)
• Festive Skin – Engineers Residence
• Festive Skin – Investors Residence

Der Beitrag DevBlog: The “End of an Era” Pack CDLC erschien zuerst auf Anno Union.