Tag: Cosmetic DLC

Union Update – “Industrial Zone” Pack Release Day

Posted on by UbiCecce

Hello Annoholics,

Today is “Industrial Zone” Pack release day!

Bring the “dirty” parts of your cities to life with new ornaments revolving around construction and industry like scaffolding, a waterpipe network and a crane. Or add some spice to your industrial railroad with railway halls, railway signals and a coal tower.

For a first impression, check out DevBlog for the “Industrial Zone” Pack . You can buy the Cosmetic DLC here in the Ubisoft Store.

Also releasing today is Game Update 14.3, addressing amongst other things a memory leak issue for Steam players and adding two new company logos, unlocked by you by fulfilling the DLC 10 Community Challenge.

You can check out the full Release Notes here.

Community Spotlight

It has been a while since our last Community Spotlight, so we thought that this was the perfect occasion for us to share some of your amazing screenshots in preparation for today’s release. As usual, we are impressed by your creativity and dedication in building your Anno cities, and we cannot wait to see what you create with the “Industrial Zone” Pack Cosmetic DLC – so feel free to share your screenshots with us!

Disclaimer: some screenshots might contain mods.

Let’s get the ball rolling with our first pick of the day, a wonderful University Campus created by MoonFernTreasures. They designed the whole campus, dorms included, and each building represents a different college: from Law and Politics to Naval Academy and Botany. Go check the whole collection on Reddit, where you can also find the full list of buildings.

Another great collection of screenshots, this one shared by AnnoHolicKorean on Reddit. They tried to recreate early Boston in their Anno world, and this particular screenshot pictures the commercial area of the city, where everything started.

The next screenshot is a project by 9ersGaming and moldebort in co-op: a recreation of Berlin in 1963. 9ersGaming built the West part while moldebort built East Berlin. Once done with the building, they walked across the border together in first person mode.

We are in love with the quiet atmosphere of this screenshot by evergreen94 that captures the beauty and lushness of these farm fields. And the rain falling just adds the perfecting touch: we can almost smell the wet grass and crops after a summer storm.

Finally, we would like to end this Community Spotlight with a video that left us speechless for the whole 5 minutes and 11 seconds. Breadom created and dedicated this video to Anno 1800’s Season 3 and it is based on the content of three DLCs: Tourist Season, Docklands and The High Life. The whole video is such an amazing journey!

YouTube

YouTube has been deactivated. Do you accept the use of cookies to display and allow you to watch the video content?
Set Cookies

I acceppt Cookies

This is all for today’s Union Update, we hope you enjoy the new Cosmetic DLC. Whether you decide to expand your industrial district or build construction sites around your cities, we would love to see what you create – so share with us your screenshots on Twitter!

Happy city-building!

DevBlog: “Industrial Zone” Pack Cosmetic DLC

Posted on by UbiCecce

Hello Anno Community,

We are slowly but steadily getting closer to the release of our new Cosmetic DLC, so you know what this means: a dedicated DevBlog with some juicy details and insights while waiting to decorate your Anno cities with the new ornaments!

The “Industrial Zone” Pack is the second Cosmetic DLC of 2022 and marks the eighth Cosmetic DLC release for Anno 1800. As the name clearly suggests, the focus of this new CDLC will be the construction and industry districts of your cities. You, the Community, have been quite vocal about the need of some ornaments dedicated to this topic. Afterall, it is a quite fitting theme for a game that takes place during the industrial revolution, isn’t it?

This CDLC consists of 28 brand new ornaments and, as mentioned in our previous Union Update, it is divided into two main themes: Construction and Railway. Let us take a closer look at them together!

Construction Ornaments

Construction and work sites are extremely common in the real world: scaffolding hiding the faces of a building during renovation, construction sites on roads slowing down the traffic, while curious kids try to peep through the construction fences, fascinated by those big cranes destroying and moving materials around. With the Construction-themed ornaments, you will be able to recreate the busy life of construction workers in your Anno cities.

A construction trailer, a construction crane, and even a sawing station! All these and more for you to recreate the perfect atmosphere in your industrial districts. In total, there are 15 Construction ornaments, with some of them having different variants. Construction fences and water pipes are among the most interesting ones, as they allow you to build “modular” structures, as you can see in the screenshot below. Intriguing, isn’t it?

Railway Ornaments

Railways and transportation are essential for construction and your industry as a whole, as they help you to keep things running – and literally keep the lights on. Among the Railway ornaments you will find two types of Railway Halls, a Railway Platform, and a crane to make the loading process easier for the Anno workers.

But that is not all, Annoholics – together with the ones mentioned above, there will be even more railway-themed ornaments! In total, there are 13 cosmetic pieces for the Railway theme, and some of them have different variants, just like the Construction Ornaments. Oh, and of course, safety is important, so do not forget to place the Guard Hut and Railway signs in your industrial district, too!

And now our favourite part of the DevBlog, the Q&A with our Art Team, who are of course the minds and hands behind our CDLCs. We asked some questions to Raphael, Lead Artist on Anno, to get some insights on the creative process behind this CDLC.

Generally speaking, what is the process behind the creation of an ornament?

First we do some research and then we start with a lot of small 2D scribbles. We then choose the best ones and make a rough 3D Version to check dimensions and how they look and feel in the game. Once we decide on the final design, we use a traditional 3D workflow to create the ornament.

Which ornament was the most challenging to create and which the most fun?

The construction crane was the most challenging but also the most fun. It was difficult to find the right design that fits the time and make sure the scaling works with all the buildings and other ornaments. We had to make sure it is high enough, so it is still visible when placed in the middle of the residences. It was a lot of fun to create all the little details like bolts and welds that make the asset more believable and bring it to life…

The industrial theme could be considered quite wide and open; how did you decide on the final ornaments for this CDLC?

For us it is always important to make a good selection for the player and give them the possibility to combine the ornaments in many interesting ways. Because we already have a lot of ornaments in the game, we also need to make sure we do not repeat ourselves too much, this also plays a key role in the selection process.

If you had to pick one favourite ornament for this CDLC, which one would it be and why?

I like the scaffolding because it lets me change the look of the existing buildings and really brings that construction vibe across.

To sum it up, with the “Industrial Zone” Pack you will be able to bring out the dirty, grey side of your cities, that represents the heartbeat of the Industrial revolution and development. Plus, here’s a tip from us: this new CDLC works wonder together with the Sewers cosmetics from the “Pedestrian Zone” Pack CDLC and the Industrial ornaments from Bright Harvest.

The “Industrial Zone” Pack will be available for purchase for the usual 4,99€ (or your regional equivalent) starting from June 28th.

If you have further questions related to the Cosmetic DLC, do not hesitate to ask them in the comments below or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or our official Forums.

Happy city-building, Annoholics!

List of all ornaments

Construction Ornaments

  • Construction Trailer
  • Construction Crane
  • Construction Site
  • Pile Diver
  • Sawing Station
  • Sanitary Pipes
  • Copper Pipes
  • Water Pipes
  • Scaffolding
  • Construction Fence
  • Construction Fence Entrance
  • Water Pipe Network
  • Elevated Water Pipes
  • Water Pipe Connector
  • Pipe Passageway

Railway Ornaments

  • Large Railway Hall
  • Small Railway Hall
  • Railway Platform
  • Coal Tower
  • Railway Guard Hut
  • Railway Crane
  • Oil Tank
  • Water Tank
  • Railway signal
  • Railway Electric Pole
  • Railway Yield Sign
  • Elevated Railway Signal
  • Railway Warning Sign

Union Update: “Industrial Zone” Pack CDLC teaser and more

Posted on by UbiCecce

Hey Anno community,

Now that we reached early June, we think it’s a good opportunity to update you on a few things Anno: The two remaining Cosmetic and DLC 11.

Cosmetic DLC 8

As revealed in May, Cosmetic DLC 8 is called the “Industrial Zone Pack” and will release at the end of this month – more precisely: June 28th!

True to its name, you can expect ornaments focusing on construction and industry, the dirtier but nevertheless necessary parts of a city. The CDLC is split into two themes, the first is construction and adding things like scaffolding ornaments.

The second is focusing on your railroad system, one of the lifelines for any advanced city in Anno 1800. Fans of miniature railroads will certainly enjoy beautifying their islands with ornaments like a railway guard hut with its own little platform.

 

As usual, you can expect more details and a DevBlog with further insights and the full list of all ornaments in the coming weeks.

Cosmetic DLC 9

About a month ago, the community vote for this year’s third Cosmetic DLC was in full swing and in the end, it was the “Old Town Pack” that won the race. Going by the comments (and you left a lot of them), there’s also quite a bit of nostalgia connected to the theme of the CDLC.

After the end of the vote, our Art team started exploring the topic, incorporating both their own ideas as well as the feedback we received from our community. It is still a bit too early to talk about details, but we should have a first glimpse for you in July regarding what you can expect for this Cosmetic DLC.

DLC: Empire of the Skies

Lastly, there’s of course DLC 11 – Empire of the Skies.

The release of the second DLC of Season 4 is still further in the future (late summer) and will then allow you not only to expand your trading and war fleet with new airship variants but also profit from the advantages of the new mail system as well as other features to make your New World as well as your empire overall grow closer together.

Right now, we’re still in the production phase of the DLC, meaning assets are still being worked on, features (like the behaviour of the new airships) are finalized, and UI elements created. Soon, we will enter the polishing and fixing phase during which we can show you some first teasers of the new content – so keep an eye on our social channels!

Goodbye, Marcel

So much for the news on the upcoming content, however, there’s also a change in the team we want to inform you about:

At the end of June, we’re saying “goodbye for now” to one of our Anno veterans, our dear Senior International Brand Manager Marcel Hatam – also known as Com_Raven. Having joined in 2017 during the early production of Anno 1800, he has since steered the Anno ship on the Brand side successfully through the game’s release and till now 4 years of post-launch content.

You could also see him in many of our live streams and trailers – most famously playing the role of the architect in the “The High Life” trailer (however, we can confirm he’s not starting an acting career).

“One last time: Hey Anno Community! When I bought 1602 24 years ago, I would not have dared dream that I could one day help to develop a new Anno game myself. I am eternally grateful for the past 5 years, and proud how all of us together – you in the community and us on the Anno-Team – made 1800 not only the most successful, but also the best Anno ever. I know this incredibly talented team has a very bright future ahead, and I cannot wait to cheer them on as a fan myself.”

– Marcel

And while Marcel is sailing towards new adventures, his brand-sceptre has been handed to Lisa, our Junior International Product Manager, who you surely already know from previous live streams. 

Please give him a round of applause for his role in making Anno 1800 the success it is! We wish him all the best for his surely magical new adventures. 

Union Update: CDLC Vote Winner, Game Update 14.2 and Community Spotlight

Posted on by UbiCecce

Hello Anno Community,

The voting has just ended, and it is time for us to reveal the winner of the Cosmetic DLC Community Vote! Furthermore, we will take this opportunity to speak about Game Update 14.2 and share our favourite screenshots in the Community Spotlight.

Cosmetic DLC Community Vote: The winner!

And the winner is…

[drumroll]

The Old Town Pack!

It became quite obvious since day one of the vote that this was going to be the Community’s choice for the third Cosmetic DLC of 2022. A great choice, Anno Community! The Old Town Pack will be released in autumn of this year, as the third and last CDLC of 2022. Just like other CDLC, it will be a standalone purchase for the price of 4,99€ and is not be part of the Season 4 Pass.

Many of you have also voiced what kind of content you would like to see for this theme, and we’re planning to give you a status update on our rough plans in summer.

Game Update 14.2

Today we released Game Update 14.2. This patch retroactively fixes the problem with all achievements being unlocked after GU14 and the missing Clay Pits in the “Seasons of Silver” scenario. You can find the Release Notes here.

Community Spotlight

For today’s Community Spotlight, we decided to go with a collection of screenshots that perfectly capture the beauty of the warm and soft tones of the New World. Here are our picks, enjoy!

Mydriase shared this amazing collection of screenshots, with the first one capturing a snapshot of their New World city. We love the contrast between the orange tones of the building and the fresh and lush green trees all around the city!

Aestris seems to have also spent a significant amount of time on beautifying his New World island using DLC 10. The Hacienda, its farms and residence areas are all surrounded by the new ornament wall, hopefully keeping some of the noise and smoke of the railway.

While modded, we love Ionovia’s layout – and the tilt shift effect really creates a miniature world atmosphere. Very cool screenshots.

Meanwhile, Carpo_VP has greatly enjoyed the “Seasons of Silver” scenario and shared some of their impressions on Twitter.

You might have already noticed, but we’re entering a slower period right now when it comes to news while the team is busy working on DLC 11 – Empire of the Skies – right now. You can expect more news in the second half of June when we start talking about the “Industrial Zone Pack” Cosmetic DLC.

Vote for 2022’s third Cosmetic DLC!

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

 

As we announced earlier this year when we talked about Cosmetic DLC plans for 2022, we still want to leave the third of this year’s CDLCs up to your vote!

While the first released on February 15th (the “Seasonal Decorations” Pack) and the second one (the “Industrial Zone” Pack) will release in June, the third one is planned for Autumn.

And for this, we are planning to once more put the decision on the topic into the hands of you, our Anno Union community!

 

In total, we’re presenting you with three possible Cosmetic DLC topics. As you will see, we also considered your feedback on topics that you would like to see more ornaments about.

And now enough of the introduction, here are the 3 themes you can vote on! Keep in mind that those are only our current plans for the Cosmetic DLC topics. The exact content and scope depend on the theme of the pack which we will further explore as soon as the result is clear.

And now enough of the introduction, here are the 3 themes you can vote on! Keep in mind that those are only our current plans for the Cosmetic DLC topics. The exact content and scope depend on the theme of the pack which we will further explore as soon as the result is clear.

 

 “Nature Pack”: Ornaments that can be used in larger inner-city parks or maybe as part of a bigger recreational nature park outside the city. It would focus on nature objects like special trees, natural monuments, rock formations and maybe places for hikers to rest.

“Eldritch Pack”: Century-appropriate gothic elements for your cities with darker and potentially slightly spooky ornaments. These could be gargoyles, twisted trees, graveyard pieces and other gothic architecture.

“Old Town Pack”: The age of industrialization is upon us, but that doesn’t mean forgetting about the more medieval roots of your cities from previous Annos. This pack would focus on leftovers from older times for your city centres.

Of course, all of us on the Anno 1800 team have our own favourites that we are crossing fingers for (did someone say “Eldritch Pack”?) and we sat down to discuss our Cosmetic DLC plans and this year’s candidates:

 

That’s not all, though: Three Anno characters will do their best to convince you for their personal favourite – keep an eye on our social channels Twitter and Facebook for their takes!

As before, the Cosmetic DLC will be a standalone purchase for the price of 4,99€ and will not be part of the Season 4 Pass to give our players maximum flexibility over their Anno 1800 experience.

 

The voting will run for two weeks and end on Monday, May 16th at 11:59pm CEST / 5:59 PM EDT. You can click on any of the images to view them in full size. Happy voting, and stay safe!

[totalpoll id=”16703″]

*Please note that as before, all content will be cosmetic and will not change Anno 1800’s gameplay. The names of the packs are “working titles” and might change later on.

Union Update: Release of the “Seasonal Decorations” Pack and GU 13.2

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hello Annoholics!

After much teasing the day has finally arrived: It’s release day! Our newest Cosmetic DLC “Seasonal Decorations” Pack and Game Update 13.2 are now live. Let’s have a quick look at both.

“Seasonal Decorations” Pack

Today we released the first Cosmetic DLC of 2022 and if that doesn’t give you enough cause for celebration, the content of the “Seasonal Decorations” Pack sure will!

With the newest Cosmetic DLC, your citizens’ celebrations can now extend throughout the year! Colorful flower decorations in Spring, sunny wine bars in Summer, cozy bonfire nights in Autumn, and magical Winter wonderlands – the “Seasonal Decorations” Pack has it all!

Excited? Then don’t forget to check out our latest DevBlog for a detailed overview of all the new ornaments as well as a short Q&A with Raphael, the Lead Artist of Anno 1800.

The Cosmetic DLC is now available in the Ubisoft Store for 4,99€ (or your regional equivalent).

You’ll have a chance to earn it for free through our upcoming Refer-a-Friend program – more details on this and our Season 4 plans will be shared soon!

We can’t wait to see how your cities change with the seasons!

Game Update 13.2

Alongside the Cosmetic DLC we are also releasing Game Update 13.2 today which will, amongst other things, fix the missing consumption statistics for several goods and activate the fisherman’s quest in the Eden Burning scenario. You can find the full Release Notes here.

Stream Announcement

Before diving into this week’s community spotlight we have one final announcement to make: We will be doing another Anno Afternoon live stream on Friday, February 18, at 5PM CET. Join Celeste and Oliver as they continue on their co-op save and challenge their inner beauty-builders with the new “Seasonal Decorations” Pack.

We can’t wait to hang out with you guys again so we hope to see you then!

Community Spotlight

We wanted to finish off this week’s Union Update with another form of celebration: A celebration of you! As always, we were blown away by the amazing creations that you have shared with us and the community and we wanted to take the time to highlight a few.

First up we have this stunning creation by Spacer176 on r/anno. Using Engineer and Investor houses to enclose historic Artisan quarters is a great way of adding more discoverability to your cities. Thank you Spacer176 for this awesome beauty-build tip!

Next, we have this wonderful side-by-side of JackedKermit’s city on Reddit. Despite its small beginnings, the city is now booming with life! What a transformation!

Although we love a big city, there’s something special about small village life. AlexButterworth’s creation on Reddit made us feel right at home with its dense green forests and adorable little town centre. We know where we will go next time we need a break from the hustle and bustle of the city!

Feeling inspired after seeing all these amazing screenshots? Well, why not take part in the ongoing community challenge on the Annoverse Discord? In this latest challenge, you will take on the role of railroad baron on your mission to create your beautiful railway empire. Submissions close on the 28th of February so head over to the Annoverse Discord now to share your creations!

To finish off this week’s community spotlight we have another great creation by the one and only Dulcamarra! We have to admit that it made us giggle quite a bit (sorry Willie!). Great work as always and if you haven’t already, go check more of her art on her Deviantart page!

Those are all our community spotlights for today! We just love seeing all the amazing creations you guys come up with and cannot wait to see what you will do with our newest Cosmetic DLC. Make sure to share some screenshots with us!

And that’s it for today’s Union Update! As always, if you have any questions or comments feel free to share them below or contact us on Twitter, Facebook or our official forums.

DevBlog: “Seasonal Decorations” Pack Cosmetic DLC

Posted on by UbiCecce

Hello Anno Community,

As you might have seen already here on the Anno Union, last week we communicated on our overall Cosmetic DLC plans for 2022. Today, instead, we would like to focus on the first Cosmetic DLC of this year: “Seasonal Decorations Pack” Cosmetic DLC!

Back in 2019 we released the first “seasonal” CDLC, the “Holiday Pack”, which gives you the chance to fully embrace the holiday spirit and decorate your cities with Christmas markets (and more!). You loved it, and we heard it. However, it does feel slightly out of place in summer or spring, doesn’t it?

Well, with the “Seasonal Decorations Pack” you will be able to decorate your cities with fitting ornaments to any of the four seasons. Spring, Summer, Autum, or Winter: it is your choice!

In total, the “Seasonal Decorations Pack” contains 24 brand new ornaments, that means 6 themed ornaments for each season of the year. Let’s have a look at them more closely, shall we?

Spring

Flowers, flowers everywhere! Let your city bloom with fresh, springtime colours and flowers. We think these ornaments would go in perfect harmony with the Colourful Theme of “Vibrant Cities Pack”, don’t you think?

Summer

Would you like some wine? Summer’s the perfect time to hold a Wine Fest in your Anno cities. Just make sure not to drink too much! With the Summer-themed ornaments, you can place wine stands and tables all over your cities. There is even a May Pole!

Autumn

Bring your biggest pumpkin – Autumn is here! Nothing can beat the warm colours of this season. Leaves start falling, the air gets colder and colder: it is the perfect time to build some bonfires around your cities and drink some warm cider by the pumpkin competition stand.

Winter

Grab your skates, time to have some fun on the ice-skating rink, after grabbing some roast chestnuts from the stall. We think this will be the perfect way to get your cities into the Holiday mood and fight some of the cold brought by Winter.

Q&A

Now, it is time for our favourite part of the DevBlog: the Q&A! This time, we had a chat with Raphael, Lead Artist on Anno 1800.

What were your main “real world” references?
Mainly markets and street festivals that are happening during the different seasons. For example, being in Mainz, the wine festival theme was an obvious choice because it is rooted deeply in the culture of this area.

What was the hardest ornament to work on and why?
The ice rink, because we had to make sure the ice looks good. It was a bit tricky to get the glossiness right with our shader. In the end it turned out very nice, especially during the nighttime and with all the feedback units running.

How hard was it to decide on the final ornaments when covering 4 entire seasons has SO MUCH potential? ?
Of course we had many more ideas because it is such a rich topic. In the end it came down to making a nice package for each season, taking things like ornament size and variety into consideration.

What is your favourite Season theme and your favourite ornament for this CDLC?
I really like the summer season, if I look at the wine stand, I immediately want to sit down with some friends and have a good time.

As an Anno player, do you consider yourself a beauty-builder?
Yes absolutely, I love making my cities look pretty and adding little details wherever I can.

Outro

The “Seasonal Decorations Pack” will be available for purchase for the usual 4,99€ (or your regional equivalent) starting from February 15th.

If you have further questions related to the Cosmetic DLC, feel free to ask them in the comments below or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or our official Forums.
Happy city-building!

Full Ornament List

Spring:

  • Flower Pavilion
  • Flower Shop
  • Balloon Stand
  • Flower Sculpture
  • Blumenbogen
  • Flower Gate

Summer:

  • Small Wine Stand
  • Large Wine Stand
  • Wine FestivalTable
  • Wine Barrel
  • May Pole
  • Wine Festival Entrance

Autumn:

  • Pumpkin Cart
  • Pumpkin Barrels
  • Bonfire
  • Pumpkin Competition
  • Cider Stall
  • Autumnal Gate

Winter

  • Chestnut Stall
  • Ice Rink
  • Christmas Pyramid
  • Christmas Arch
  • Snow Globe
  • Winter Gate

Our Cosmetic DLC plans for 2022

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

In January, we gave you a first short preview of our plans for 2022 and as also already communicated last year, we’ll have a looot of information about Season 4 in late March.
In the preview we also already revealed that we’re planning more Cosmetic DLC this year after the success and the extremely positive reception of our previous CDLC.

Generally speaking, we will follow a similar strategy as we did last year: We’re once again planning with 3 Cosmetic DLC spread over the year and there will be once again a Community Voting for one of the themes. Let’s take a closer look:

The very first CDLC is going to be the “Seasonal Decorations Pack”, giving you multiple options to celebrate each period of the year in your game. We’ll go further into our DevBlog next week, no worries. The release of the “Seasonal Decorations Pack” as well as Game Update 13.2 is planned for February 15th.

For now, we’ll leave you with a small teaser:

In May, we will hold this year’s Community Voting for the third and last Cosmetic DLC of this year. We haven’t quite agreed on the four candidates yet but can already tell you that the Circus will not make a return after clearly losing both previous votes while Marcel’s beloved Eldritch Pack will most likely be part of this year’s voting again. We’re looking at providing a mix of different types of Cosmetic DLC, more on that in May.

The release of the winning CDLC is currently planned for autumn, more details to come later this year.

You may have noticed we skipped the second Cosmetic DLC in our chronological order: That’s because it will release AFTER the voting mentioned above but BEFORE the winner of said vote.

A big part of video game development is planning (one of the main tasks of our Production Team) and with the Season 4 DLC also in development we ultimately decided it’s making our lives significantly easier to decide on and start working on the first two Cosmetic DLC.

The voting in May is too late for us to start working on two CDLC afterwards, while we figured that having a voting directly in January would have seemed rather rushed considering we haven’t even gone into detail on the Season 4 content.

So, with that out of the way: This year’s second Cosmetic DLC is scheduled to release in June and will focus on more ornaments for your industrial and production districts – something we have seen discussed and requested multiple times in the past.

This should provide you with even more ways to beautify the… not so beautiful parts of your islands 😉

Those are our rough Cosmetic DLC plans for this year, with more details still to come in the next months. – Or, in the case of the “Seasonal Decorations Pack”: Already next week!

It’s Game Update 13 Release Day!

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

We have just released Game Update 13, our last big update for the year, and it should be available for you momentarily.

The full Release Notes with all changes and bug fixes can be found here.

 

That’s not all, though, since GU13 also includes Anno 1800’s first scenario, “Eden Burning”, which is the result of our participation in the Green Game Jam. Learn more about it here in this DevBlog and visit the Play4Forest website to sign the petition to protect our Earth’s forests.

Another part of this project is our collaboration with Ecologi to support reforestation efforts: By buying the “Plant a Tree” DLC in the Ubisoft Store you’re supporting the planting of more trees since we’re forwarding all net proceeds (i.e. everything after taxes and other fees are deducted) to Ecologi. On top, you’re getting a new Ceiba Tree ornament to place in your cities.

 

Also releasing today is Cosmetic DLC 6: The “Vibrant Cities Pack”. Change the look of your cities by providing your residence buildings with a fresh coat of paint!

Be it a colorful paint job, a more traditional brick theme, or the neon-lit nightlife version for Investors and Engineers – each allows you to further individualize your cities.

More details about its development can be found in this DevBlog – and you can purchase it here in the Ubisoft Store.

We’re nearing the holidays but are not quite done yet – we do have one more blog and a little Holiday gift for you Tuesday next week. So stay tuned!

 

Until then: Enjoy the new content!

We can’t wait to see screenshots of your vibrant cities, so please share them with us on Reddit, Twitter or any other of our platforms.

And of course, let us know your thoughts on the “Eden Burning” scenario: How many attempts did you need? How is your eco balance looking like? Share it in the comments!

Community Spotlight

We also want to use today’s Union Update for a small Community Spotlight, considering we have once again seen some great content created by you!

First comes this absolutely stunning beauty building attempt by Laudica, once again, creating architectural marvels out of Skyscrapers:

Following our Season 4 announcement, we greatly enjoyed following the various speculations, for example on Reddit, as to what the teaser trailer did show – and what it didn’t. An interesting watch in this regard is also the video by Takarazuka featured below:

YouTube

YouTube has been deactivated. Do you accept the use of cookies to display and allow you to watch the video content?
Set Cookies

I acceppt Cookies

And with 2021 slowly coming to a close, Johnnyvanderzwaag shared some early Holiday greetings on Reddit:

If you worked on a cool video or have a great screenshot to share, we’d be happy to share it in a future Community Spotlight!

 

Until next time, and enjoy today’s Game Update!

DevBlog: “Vibrant Cities Pack” Cosmetic DLC

Posted on by UbiCecce

In the past weeks we have shared some teasers after the Reddit Community challenged us. Now it is time for a deep dive into the upcoming Cosmetic DLC, Vibrant Cities Pack!

This is the second Skins Pack released for Anno 1800, with the first being the Vehicle Liveries Pack last Spring.

Why the Vibrant Cities Pack? – you might ask. In Spring 2021, we opened the votes for five possible Cosmetic DLC. The choice was in your hands, and the Vibrant Cities Pack resulted to be the winner of the poll together with the Pedestrian Zone Pack. What a great combo, don’t you think?

With this brand new Cosmetic DLC, we will add some great skins to Anno 1800, that will make your cities look livelier and more vibrant than ever: three new skins for each residence building of each resident tier.

“We wanted to create different skin sets and some new models as variations. So, introducing it on the residence buildings was the logic step because these are the most important and most frequently placed building in every city.”

– Tim, Lead Artist

In total, the pack includes 69 skins – three new skins per building model of each population tier (Tiers 1, 2 and 3 each have four models, Tier 4 has six models and Tier 5 has six models, each receiving three new skins). Furthermore, the skins can be divided into four different themes.

Different themes

Now, let’s have a look at the different themes that will be available in the Cosmetic DLC.

Colourful Theme (Tier 1-5)
A great way to make your city pop with some pastel colours. Whether you like blue, red, green, pink, or orange… feel free to use all of them to experiment and express your creativity. This theme will be available for Tier 1-5.

Brick Theme (Tier 1-5)

If you prefer to go with a more “classic” look for your cities, then the brick theme is the one for you. It is something you see often on old buildings in American cities (like Boston, for example). Just like the colourful theme, the brick one will be available for Tier 1-5.

Inverted Theme (Tier 1-3)

This theme can be considered as a counterpart of the unique and new looks, like the Colourful Theme for example. It uses the same materials and colours as the regular asset, but in an inverted way. The roof colour is swapped with the colour of the walls. In this way you will be able to add more variation to the regular buildings, without changing their look too much.

Casino Theme (Tier 4 and 5)

Did anyone say neon signs? Oh yes. But first, a bit of a history class: neon was discovered by Sir William Ramsay in 1889, while the first neon sign was installed outside a barber shop in Paris in 1912. By the 1920s-1930s the first neon signs started glowing in the streets of Las Vegas. Well, now it is time for you to make your Anno 1800 cities shine with some bright and colourful neon lights. The Casino theme will only be available for Tier 4 and 5 residence buildings.

Eager to know more? Tim, our Lead Artist, answered our questions and let us have a peek behind the scenes of this Cosmetic DLC:

In terms of creation workflow, what is the difference between ornaments and skins?

With regular skins we provide texture variations for the already existing assets in the game. Therefore, we create new texture maps (diffuse, normal maps etc.) for these buildings. For the new marketplace variations for example, the workflow is quite the same as for the ornaments, for which we create completely new assets based on our Concept Art.

Speaking of inspiration and reference, have you looked at something specific?

For the colourful theme for example, you can find colourful houses all around the world: Burano (Venice, Italy) or La Boca (Argentina). Also, a lot of old fishing villages are often very colourful.

How did you decide on the different styles for the themes?

For the different themes, we wanted to have some unique ones, like the colourful skin for example, and some themes that add slightly different variations, to make sure you can decide how unique you want your city to be.

Now on a more personal note, what is your favourite skin?

I like the colourful skin the most. This really brings a very new and fresh look to your cities.

The marketplace

Last but not least – yes, there is even more! – three new alternative models for the Marketplace have been added, more fitting to Tier 1, 4 and 5.

The original Marketplace we have in the game is a great asset, but it did not work too good in the late game from a visual point of view, especially with the content of The High Life DLC, like the Skyscrapers. With the new Marketplace alternative models, we wanted to create new markets that fits every tier, from the farmer’s Market to the city Market Hall.

The Vibrant Cities Pack will be available for purchase for the usual 4,99€ (or your regional equivalent) starting from December 14th.

We cannot wait to see your cities come to life with the Vibrant Cities Pack Cosmetic DLC. If you have further questions related to the Cosmetic DLC, feel free to ask them in the comments below or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or our official Forums.

Happy city-building!