Anno Union Winter Break

This year has been an incredible ride and 2019 will always be remembered as a big moment in Anno history, where Anno 1800 finally set sail to conquer the world. But it is not the end of a journey, merely a beginning. With the support of the Anno Union, the game became an overwhelming success and with the wind in our back and the wide horizon before us, we are looking into a bright future for the series.

Only 8 months after our maidens’ voyage, many thousands of players pushing their empires into the industrial revolutions every day and the numbers are still growing. With a strong season of content, from Sunken Treasures, Botanica and our latest DLC The Passage, up to many free game additions and updates such as Co-op, day night and statistics, our journey is far from over.

New adventures will await you 2020, with new content to expand the scope and enhance the experience of Anno 1800 even further. But before that, it is time to catch breath and to enjoy the holiday season with our family, friends and most likely playing a lot of games during our Anno Union winter break.

We will return in January with insights and updates about our future vision for the game. Until then, the whole Ubisoft Mainz team says thanks to all of you for your incredible support in 2019 and a happy holiday season to you and your beloved ones.

Union Update: Let’s celebrate 2019!

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.

You can just download the package here:

 

Happy Holidays and we see you Wednesday!

 

 

The Passage, Holiday Pack and GU 6 are here!

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.

You can find the full release notes here.

 

Anno 1800 Free Week

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!

 

 

The Future of Anno 1800

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!

 

Union Update: Twitch Drop

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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The Passage Twitch Drops beginning this Friday

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.

You can find the full list of all participating Streamer here:
Amyzzin (English)
Belannaer (English)
Caaaaate (English)
Cringer (English)
helpinghans (English)
Mathia (Dutch)
Achterklap (Dutch)
urqueeen (Polish)
soushibo (Polish)
Koinsky (French)
ValleGaming (German)
PietSmiet (German)
writing_bull (German)
Zazuno (German)
Radlerauge (German)
Syrenia (German)
Anni the Duck (German)

 

The Annoverse Roundtable Recordings

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.