Keeping it short and sweet today, as we’re in the middle of preparations for the Closed Beta! And we got a few details that could be of interest to you. Plus a small tease at the coming DevBlog! 

Get ready for the Anno 1800 Closed Beta
The Closed Beta will be a bit bigger than last years Technical Test. And if you were one of the lucky selectees, then you won’t have to wait too long. Invitations will be sent out in the coming days, so check your inbox (and spam folders 😉 ).

A few things to note:

• As with the Technical Test, this Beta is not representative for the finished game, which we’re currently finishing and polish so it’s ready for the big launch in April. Some things won’t work occasionally or outright break. This is intentional, as the Beta gives us important insights into topics such as Balance and Performance of the game. So please use the Closed Beta Forums (which will be opened on the english Ubisoft Forums soon) to provide us with Feedback and Bug Reports.
• No NDA: This Closed Beta won’t have an NDA. That means you can stream, record and share videos and discuss your experiences in public. And we urge you to do so! If you’re on Social Media, make use of Hashtags such as #Anno1800, #AnnoUnion, #AnnoUnionCB und #Anno1800CB, so other Annoholics and ourselves can find your messages.
• The Closed Beta won’t encompass the full game. The campaign won’t be playable and you can only reach the third residential tier in Endless Mode. Additionally, you’ll be able to challenge or cooperate with other players in Multiplayer, as well as explore and build in the New World.
• The Closed Beta will run from 31. January 2019 to the 4th of February 2019.

Registering for the Closed Beta
If you’re still wondering how to get a chance to participate in the Beta: Log into the Anno Union with your Uplay Account or register a new Uplay Account if you don’t have one. You can do that using the buttons in the upper right corner of this website.

So if you haven’t yet logged into the Union for whichever reason, now’s the time to get that sorted. 🙂

System Requirements for the Closed Beta
There are only minimal changes from the specs since the Technical Test, but please keep in mind that these still aren’t final, as we’re still optimizing the game.

Current Minimum Specs:

• CPU: Intel i5 3470 oder AMD FX 6350
• RAM: 8 GB
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 670 GTX oder AMD Radeon R9 285
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (jeweils 64-bit)
• Hard Drive: 60 GB

Current Recommended Specs:

• CPU: Intel i5 4690k oder AMD Ryzen 5 1400
• RAM: 8 GB
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 970 GTX oder AMD Radeon RX 480
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (jeweils 64-bit)
• Hard Drive: 60 GB

DISCLAIMER: THERE ARE NOT THE FINAL REQUIREMENTS! As Anno 1800 is still in the middle of development and performance optimization, you should not consider these specs to be representative of the final game. This test specifically should help us to find some areas where we can further improve the game’s performance.

Language
We are still in the middle of localisation of texts and recording voiceovers. Therefore we’ll only be able to offer this Closed Beta in English only. Sorry about that!

When we release in April, the following languages will be available:

Fully localised Text and Audio

• English
• German
• French
• Russian

Fully localised Text

• Italian
• Spanish
• Japanese
• Korean
• Polish
• Chinese (traditional and simplified)

Livestreams and Videos
If you have no opportunity to play yourself or need to take a break from being at your computer, then you can still get some impression from the Anno 1800 Closed Beta. You can check out what other players show from the game on Youtube, Twitch and Mixer.

Last but not least, we’ll want to show off the Closed Beta Trailer here. It was first revealed during last weeks AnnoCast and gives you an idea about the Feature we’ll showcase in this weeks DevBlog.

And that’s it for this weeks Union Update. We wish you all good luck to get a Beta invite!