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Excited to see what info we get in July!
External link →Excited to see what info we get in July!
External link →Hey Anno Community,
Welcome to a rather lengthy Union Update with news and information. We’ll be talking about next week’s livestream, what happened in the last two weeks and have a Q&A section at the end.
Short reminder here that we had our very first livestream, a dev talk about our vision for Anno 117: Pax Romana and the reveal itself, last week. If you missed it, you can watch the VOD here.
Let’s dive right in:
On July 2nd, we’re tackling questions that are likely also close to the heart of many Anno veterans: What even is Anno? What makes Anno games special and what are the key aspects and emotions an Anno game has to transport?
Those questions we have to ask ourselves from a creative, and from a brand point of view every time we start working on a new game. Anno by now is a series with a long tradition, a tradition that must be upheld but that also requires occasional self-reflection.
Together with Haye, Brand Director on Anno, and Wayne Deakin, Global Principal at Wolff Olins, we’re discussing Anno’s 26-year-old identity and how it translates into the new branding and logo for the series in general and Anno 117: Pax Romana in particular. Join us at 4:30PM CEST / 10:30AM EDT / 7:30AM PDT over on Twitch.
If you watched our livestream last week you will already have seen it: We released a little video with behind-the-scenes footage of our trailer shoot. You can watch it below:
While we certainly were nervous before the reveal on June 10th, we were rather sure about one thing: Our community seemed to be very keen about “ancient Rome” as a setting for an Anno game. In fact, we went and gathered dozens of comments from you and your wishes and requests for a Roman setting. Those comments are now immortalised on the Scroll of Fame, and we also asked our Town Crier to respond to several of them directly:
On Monday we launched our very first Community Contest: Design an Anno 117: Pax Romana statue!
With just a rough outline, you can decide about the look, shape and colour of the statue that we’ll later implement into the game. Find all the information here in our dedicated blog. The contest runs until July 14th.
We highly encourage you to give it a try and are excited with what kind of ideas you’ll surprise us!
Understandably, with the reveal just having happened, you have A LOT of questions on Anno 117: Pax Romana, the story, the characters, features, tech and many other aspects.
Broadly speaking, we are only at the very beginning of our journey when it comes to telling you more about our game. Over time, we’ll give you insights into the world and setting, the player’s role as a governor, the choices you can make and much more. But – and that is no different to our approach on Anno 1800 – this will happen over the coming months until release, based on our production plans.
Today, let’s dive into some topics you asked about:
When will you show gameplay?
We very much understand your impatience to see Anno 117: Pax Romana “in action”. However, we can already tell you that we won’t be showing any gameplay in 2024. We want to make sure we show you the game in a representative state, and since we are still very much in development, there are plenty of moving parts left: features and mechanics that might change – even drastically -, or are still missing, unfinished visual elements etc. etc.
By no means does that mean that we won’t have exciting insights for you in the meantime. Both in terms of game content as well as behind the scenes information on how we develop games. Especially the latter will hopefully also give you a better understanding of our production and communication plans.
Okay, but when will you tell us more about the game??
Very soon, July is right around the corner. Upcoming topics will first revolve around the world of Anno 117 and how we approach creating an Anno world, the research we’re doing etc.
After that, we’ll take a look at the work of the Production department and the planning and organising of a project like Anno 117: Pax Romana.
Having established the basis like this, we’ll move further into the world of Anno 117 with a closer look at both regions – Latium and Albion – and the gameplay differences between the two.
There’s more to come, this is just to give you a first taste.
You said you’re not showing gameplay for now, but how do you want to gather community feedback?
Our main source of very specific gameplay and UI feedback are playtests. We’ve organised a few already over the past months to make sure we are:
Receiving such positive feedback was a great relief for us, and reassured us in our plans for Anno 117. Of course, there are still features or mechanics that were (and others still are) not ready and, for example, during our very first playtest, we have never seen so many of our veterans go bankrupt so quickly – the balancing very much was, and still is, a work-in-progress.
We’ll continue with such playtests until release.
In addition, we have all the input you gave us before (and are now giving us after) the reveal across all kinds of channels and here on the Anno Union – especially when we start diving into more details about Anno 117: Pax Romana.
You missed out on the opportunity to make the 9th Anno a Roman one and call it “Anno 9”!
Admittedly, it would’ve been a nice little joke – but ultimately, we really wanted to make a Roman Anno now. Plus, releasing it in 2025 still keeps the 9-joke alive, doesn’t it?
Will you have (quality of life) feature X and Y?
Ah, now we’re getting specific. For the reasons outlined above, we won’t be going into detail on Anno 117’s exact feature-set quite yet. We’re not going to reinvent the (Anno-)wheel with Anno 117: Pax Romana, and you can expect the return of many beloved core features and mechanics. You can also expect improvements and changes to said features and the addition of new ones – to fit the setting and vision of the game. Trains and electricity just don’t make a lot of sense in ancient Rome, for example.
There are also a bunch of quality-of-life features in Anno 1800 that we know you love and of course those are also on our list of things for Anno 117. Blueprint mode, anyone?
In the end, we are working with a detailed production plan and a certain limit of working hours. Which features and mechanics (and in which way) will be present in Anno 117 is something we will be able to confirm at a later date.
I love the Town Crier character, will you add him to the game?
We also love our Town Crier – and are extremely happy that both the reveal trailer as well as the scroll of fame video were so well-received by our community! We’re not quite sure yet what the Emperor has to say when it comes to commemorating someone else than himself but we’ll see.
Der Beitrag Union Update: News roundup and Q&A erschien zuerst auf Anno Union.
"We are gonna make a stream explaining what Anno is"
This game is gonna be designed towards not Anno players.
I think there's a misunderstanding. We are not trying to explain to you what Anno is.
We're trying to highlight the work that goes into creating a new Anno game and that "What actually makes Anno "Anno"?" is a very important part of that. You can see these kind of discussions even amongst players here all the time, for example:
- Is it a city builder or primarily a logistics game?
- Do military aspects belong in an Anno game?
- Does Anno need islands?
Not looking at your own brand and reflecting on what the DNA of your game(s) is, can easily make you lose track of your identity and lead to a game that goes completely past your fan base.
It's fine if that's not a topic you're interested in, but please don't misconstruct our announcement into a "they want to explain to us what Anno is".
A red flag is risen.
No gameplay footage in 2024 because "we are still very much in development, there are plenty of moving parts left: features and mechanics that might change – even drastically -, or are still missing, unfinished visual elements etc. etc."
For a 2025 release I expected the game was in some sort of late beta, with gameplay balance and graphical optimization, but feature complete.
We'll have a blog in July/August talking about Production Phases and Milestones that should also help clear up a few things. I'm aware that knowledge might not be very widely know outside the game dev sector itself, so, hope this will make things clearer.
But you wouldn't be in Beta so far from release; that would also be way past the point where we could gather meaningful feedback. Same was true for Anno 1800 back then.