Author: Ubi-Thorlof

To the north, governor, you can see the outlines of the great volcano. Ah, I remember the resorts, the villas, the busy harbours on the coast of Cinis. Broken, destroyed and swept away by the volcano all those years ago.

The island, however, Cinis – what a beauty! Venture north, see for yourself and marvel at its wide beaches and green pastures. It’s waiting for you, governor, to build a city like no other in Latium.

The volcano, you ask? Don’t worry about that, focus on the bounty instead!

On April 23^rd, the first gameplay DLC for Anno 117: Pax Romana will release: Prophecies of Ash. This DLC will expand the province of Latium and add the biggest island in the history of Anno to the very North: Cinis.

Very important note right away: you won’t have to start a new savegame to enjoy the DLC. It can be integrated in any existing save.

Aside from this vast space of land for you to build your megalopolis on there is another dominating visual feature: the volcano! Eruptions can not only cause destruction in your cities but also impact your economy during volcanic winter.

Get a first overview of the DLC before we dive into the details below:

This is part of the Roman fantasy we aim to deliver with Anno 117: Pax Romana: a history of rise and fall. Since we know some of our fans don’t want this added “drama”, we paired it with the biggest construction space in Anno’s history – and made it optional.

In this first DevBlog, we’ll be talking about the expanded Latium province, the new islands and the big continental island – as well as the new trader that’s being added to Latium.

In our second DevBlog, next week, we’re diving deeper into the gameplay related to the volcano, as well as other new additions and features of the DLC.

Expanding Latium

With this DLC, we’re expanding the size of the Latium region by adding another “belt” of islands along its current north-western and north-eastern borders.

This area will be populated by additional islands – including the five new ones – as well as Cinis: the super large continental island in the far north.

You heard right: Prophecies of Ash also adds five new islands to the game which will populate the expanded area. The three medium-sized and two small-sized islands are visually designed like Cinis, with the volcanic influences clearly visible.

You may spot old lava channels, volcanic craters, hot springs, black sand and plenty of the dark rock faces – all talking about a long history of volcanic activity.

The Continental island

We know, you’ve been waiting for the star of the show: the continental-sized island awaiting you in the north of Latium.

This island’s name is Cinis (can be renamed by you, of course) and is dominated by the large volcano further in-land. In contrast to volcanos in previous Anno games, here, it’s not placed in the middle of the island (requiring you to build around it) but in the back, outside of your immediate construction zone. That doesn’t mean its eruptions won’t impact you – more on that in the second blog – but they impact you differently, and this approach ensures you have a large area to build the city of your dreams.

We can already calm everyone who prefers building without a volcano interrupting their gameplay: you can disable volcanic eruptions at any point.

You can still spot remains of previous eruptions, with old lava channels, destroyed and abandoned villas and the black sand all over the island.

In terms of pure construction space, it provides you more than twice that of the largest island of the basegame, broken up into several bigger and smaller areas by cliffs and rivers – the biggest island in Anno’s history! (about 13% larger than Crown Falls in Anno 1800)

Neither cliffs nor rivers are pure decoration, of course, since their existence also results in a large number of both river as well as mountain slots.

If you’re starting a new game, you can decide to start on Cinis right away, instead of only settling it later in the game. If you integrate the DLC into your existing savegame, simply sail north and claim Cinis for yourself.

In the settings for Prophecies of Ash, you can also decide if NPC rivals are allowed to settle the island or not. Even if disabled, you can still lose the island if a rival conquers it in a war. In multiplayer, ownership over Cinis can likely become a central element for map control in Latium.

Super large islands like Cinis were already a point of discussions within both the dev team as well as the community in the days of Anno 1800. There, the Old World received “Crown Falls” with the “Sunken Treasures” DLC, and “Manola” with the “New World Rising” DLC.

As we know, the Anno player base is made up of people with very different playstyles and expectations towards Anno – and continental islands have their fans, as well as people who consider them making the game too easy.

That poses the question: Why are we adding these islands at all and why not in the base game?

Even though we consider Anno games comparatively chill builder games, we also want them to offer challenges to our players. These don’t need to be insurmountable (Anno doesn’t aim to be the Dark Souls of builder games) but are there to push the player forward, think about efficient ways to use the game’s systems and get the feeling of achievement and success when overcoming an obstacle. With a continental island like Cinis in “Prophecies of Ash” we therefore want to fulfil both: providing a place for beauty builders and record builders alike.

We even addressed this topic back in our DevBlog on how we defined the creative vision for Anno 117: Pax Romana, when we talked about islands in general:

For us, islands – or at least the principle of islands: space limited areas with a logistics area between them – are core to the Anno experience. They would not need to be literal islands, but the limitation of space (through island size, number and design) and the challenges that arise based on that are key – they create a purpose for the player and influence many other aspects of the game’s design.

The continental island does, by design, take away quite a bit of said challenge by offering so much building space, river slots, etc. on a single island. It therefore isn’t something we want to include in the base game but instead offer it separately, as an option for players who enjoy having such vast open areas for their cities without having to worry about limited building space.

It was clear for us from the beginning that we wanted (and had) to cater to this part of our player base, which is why “Prophecies of Ash” and the island of Cinis are the first gameplay expansion for Anno 117: Pax Romana.

To contrast this reduced building space challenge, we introduced the volcano that adds difficulty and prevents the game from becoming too easy. Ultimately, however, this decision is in your hands since if and how you use the island and if you enable the volcano gameplay is, as mentioned, in your hands.

The oracle Caecilia

One could almost consider Cinis to be uninhabited if we were to compare it to its glory days as a resort for the wealthy – however, there is still a village on its western side, watched over by Caecilia.

Caecilia is an oracle, having lived on Cinis for a very long time, having experienced the last outbreak of the volcano and claiming to know everything about it and its moods. You decide, how much you want to trust that.

Her quests will give you a better idea of the history of the province while also introducing you to the gameplay mechanics surrounding the volcano; there’s also the option to skip these quests and tackle things your way.

We can take a look at her settlement, built on the remains of a previous city. It lies on an “arm” of the volcano island and makes great use of the fertile soil to grow grain and wine. On the hill right above the settlement you can find both a temple, as well a watch tower to keep an eye on the volcano and its moods. A wide bridge spans over a chasm where lava once flowed from the volcano all the way into the ocean.

Caecilia also acts as a new trader for Specialists in Latium, but dealing exclusively in Obsidian. We’ll go more into detail on these topics in our second DevBlog next week.

Outro

Here we are, you’ve arrived on Cinis and have a first grasp of the lay of the land. Now you could start building your city as usual and don’t worry about a thing – the volcano is sleeping for a long time already, after all – but maybe you do want to worry? Or maybe you wonder if there are any other advantages to be gained from the volcano?

In that case you shouldn’t miss our second DevBlog next week where we’ll talk about the volcano’s eruption phases, how to obtain Obsidian and what to do with it.

In the meantime, we’d love to know: what’s your stance on large and even super large islands? Are they one of the things you’re looking for most in an Anno game or do you prefer the challenge that medium-sized islands offer you?

The “Prophecies of Ash” DLC releases on April 23^rd on all platforms.

All Anno games feature a substantial number of icons, more than most might expect! For 117, we made an incredible amount of 1700 icons (not counting discarded variations). Our icons come in a variety of styles. The ones we use the most can be split into 2D & 3D icons.

2D icons are simple graphic images designed to remain readable even on a small scale. You can find them throughout the game: info-tips, in descriptions, or next to values.

Our 3D icons are small life-like paintings (also called skeuomorphic). These are commonly used for items and specialists as well as for buildings, ships, and resource icons.

2D Icons (Glyphs)

• Simplified and stylized drawings in a single color
• What we use it for:
  • Works for small icons
  • Works with a single color
  • Abstract concept
  • Categories
• Limitations:
  • Similar objects can be difficult to differentiate by shape alone.

3D Icons (Skeuomorphic Icons)

• Realistic depiction of an object
• What we use it for:
  • Great for differentiating similar objects, e.g., between the several types of ships.
  • Color can be used to distinguish the rarity of objects.
• Limitations:
  • Requires a bigger size due to the high amount of detail
  • Best for objects rather than concepts.

The Planning and Ideation Phase

Icons are part of the UI team’s responsibilities, with multiple team members contributing to their creation, export, and ongoing management. One UI team member oversees the overall planning and coordination, working closely with the team to define icon needs and determine which icons are produced in-house and which are created by our long-term freelance icon specialist, Sebastian Erb, who has been part of the team since Anno 2205.

2D Icons – Glyphs

Glyphs are used to represent abstract concepts or categories. To make them easily recognizable, we reference real world objects or rely on established visual concepts conveyed through ideograms or mix of both.

Pictogram

This icon resembles a real-world object.

Ideogram

The meaning of this type of icon must be learned.

Mix

Often pictograms and ideograms are combined to help clarify meaning.

2D icons might appear simple, but a great deal of discussion often goes into the creation of even a single icon. We must balance the “Roman” of the icons with clarity and recognizability. The “floppy disk” is still the go to symbol for saving but maybe we should go with something more roman? How detailed do we want to be?

To find the right design we create several alternatives. The variations are then discussed with the requesting designer and the icon team to pick the variation that works best

Since 2D icons are usually displayed at a small size, we have to keep the level of detail fairly low. We have to ensures that icons remain easy to tell apart at a glance, usability is our most important criteria. Because of this, our 2D icons mix roman and more modern elements. More detailed roman elements are mainly used on larger painted 3D icons, where they can be easier to see and read.

We decided to reference the Anno “A” from 117 for the arrow icon. The left hand icon was chosen for the game.

3D Icons

Painting detailed 3D icons allows us to add a lot more flavor and tell a story within each icon.

To keep our 3D icons consistent, we pay close attention to lighting direction, proportion, and level of detail.

Even though the scrolls are similar objects, they are made to look distinct through arrangement, shape, and angle.

The rarity and value of these scrolls is communicated through materials from dull to shining, paper to gold, and an increase in intensity and variation of colors.

Production Chains & Buildings

Production chain and building icons have a high priority in the game, as players interact with them constantly. These icons are most often seen in the construction menu, where many options are displayed side by side while players browse, compare, and plan their layouts.

Because players spend a long time looking at and working with these icons, we pay extra attention to readability, clarity, and visual balance. Icons need to be easy to recognize and distinguish at a glance, while remaining comfortable to look at over extended periods. This often takes multiple iterations to ensure each icon stays clear, consistent, and recognizable even at a small scale. We try to visually relate the input goods to the final good by keeping colors similar.

Ships

At the core of every Anno game is the exploration and trade with the outside world. Ships are the vehicle to achieve the dream of endless expansion and naval domination. Our ships are first created by the art department. They evolve quite a lot during the game’s production. Once the finish line was on the horizon, we collected renders (screenshots) of the game’s ships to hand them over to our icon specialists to create beautiful 3D paintings of each. Since these icons have to work on a small scale, they are not just a simple copy of the original 3D object but highlight the unique features of each ship. Emphasizing details such as railing and ropes to make them distinguishable.

Specialists

The wise residents of the villa are quite a colorful bunch. They represent all residents which were part of the Roman empire: from the Celts to the Egyptians, the vast diversity of the Roman empire is represented though their faces and clothing. Though it can be a challenge to find information on historical dress, we look for sources like frescos to create clothing that might resemble what was worn back in the time of the empire. When working on the specialists, we had a list with name, ethnicity, and sometimes a little description about them. With each specialist, we try to tell a story through their design.

This specialist was inspired by the fresco “Mycenaean Lady.”

For the dress and hair of this Minoan woman we referenced the fresco “Dancing Lady” which was discovered in the excavations of Heraklion.

The base game features about 400 specialists! It would have been a huge effort to hand paint all of them individually and taken many months of work time which we needed to create other icons as well. Therefore, we adopted an approach that has already proven successful in Anno 1800.

We developed a system similar to the toy ” Mr. Potato Head”. Interchangeable parts are utilized so we can mix and match based on the need of each specialist. Sebastian Erb also built a modular library of eyes, beards, hairstyles, noses, brows, clothes, scars, and items. The base bodies come in a variety of skin colors and shapes that help us create a huge library of specialists in the same style and in a short amount of time.

After the elements are chosen making up our specialist, we add a few finishing touches such as shadows, age spots, and body hair.

From posh patrician to rugged wetland walker, these outfits cover a range of the attire worn by the empire’s population. By adding dust and adjusting color, we can further add depth to the characters. This is only a small selection of the clothing created for our specialists.

A witty smirk, a disgusted frown, a content smile. This small selection of face parts hints at the variety of faces that can be created from this base.

Special Icons

If you pay close attention to our icons, you might encounter Easter eggs and references. Happy hunting for these little surprises in the game.

This is the Anno sheep that was on display during Gamescom 2025 and has found its way into the players’ and team’s hearts alike. You can encounter Gaius Schafus III. as an easter egg.

Thank you for reading this article! The Icon Team on Anno 117 are Farah Mahadon, Benjamin Clendon & Eva Kaup. Our freelance artist who created most of the wonderful icons featured on this blog is Sebastian Erb (https://sebastian-erb.de/).

Anno 117: Pax Romana is a game packed with numerous interconnected game systems that bring its world to life. All these require interfaces of some sort, and early on our User Interface Team (short: UI Team) realized that managing this complexity would require a smart approach from the start. For this reason, we formed different groups (“sub-teams”) during development. Each group focused on specific areas of the UI, the visual design, interaction design, technical implementation, and accessibility to name a few. This new approach helped to spread the work across several shoulders and allowed the team members to play to their unique strengths. The new process greatly helped to match the game’s growing ambitions.

Beyond ensuring the UI could scale with the project’s needs, we were committed to launching on both PC and console from day one, which was a challenge in itself. Creating an experience that feels intuitive and natural on two very different input devices requires careful interaction design, strong UX guidelines, and plenty of iteration to ensure the experience remains smooth and consistent. Here, we can share a few insights from that process as well.

Meet the team!

My name is Alex Gibson, and I’m one of the two UI Leads on Anno 117: Pax Romana. The UI team is significantly larger than in the previous installment, bringing together a mix of industry veterans and newcomers — a combination of experience and fresh perspectives.

In no particular order, I want to give a huge shout-out to the team for their commitment, dedication, and resilience in shaping the UI of Anno 117: Pax Romana. Their hard work is what makes the game’s interface both functional and engaging:

Jan Wawrzik (UI Lead), Benjamin Clendon, Christoph Weber, Elisabetta Andreini, Eva Kaup, Hong Nhung Hoang, Khajag Jabaghchourian, Max Pellegrino, Nur Farah Ain Mahadon, Angus Jewkes, Carlos Cervantes, and Bien Thuy Tran.

Their passion and collective efforts truly brought the UI to life and continue to shape and improve it with every update.

So, you might be wondering: what topic are we starting with today? I’d like to kick things off with the visual direction and why we chose it. This section will explore early concept designs, how our approach aligns with overall branding, and the innovations the UI team developed to make the interface both distinctive and functional whilst being conscious of time.

Visual Ideations and Concepts

Let’s go back three years, to when we first began conceptualizing the UI. At that time, the art direction was still undefined, leaving all avenues open for exploration. This created an opportunity for a few team members to start developing ideas for the game’s UI visual style, laying the groundwork for what would later become the dedicated visual team inside the UI department and providing a strong foundation for the styles we wanted to pursue.

Benjamin Clendon, Christoph Weber, Eva Kaup, Angus Jewkes and I are the key contributors in shaping the initial vision and guiding the overall visual direction of the UI. In the short pre-production phase, we explored and designed a diverse range of visual styles, quickly identifying what resonated and what didn’t. Throughout the process, we worked closely with the Creative Director and Game Director to ensure the UI evolved in alignment with their vision, establishing a clear creative foundation for the rest of the interface.

Early Miro board snapshot showcasing initial concepts and ideation.

After months of iteration and refinement, the word “Elegance” emerged as one of the foundational pillars guiding our design decisions. Complementary words such as polished, delicate, and refined also became central to the visual direction. The goal was to create a UI that felt authentic and relevant to the time period, avoiding anything that appeared aged, worn, or out of place within the world of Anno 117: Pax Romana.

We also had to remain highly mindful of technical constraints and broader project requirements. This included considerations such as texture resolution to support multi-platform development, ensuring textures could tile seamlessly (i.e. repeatable without a visual “seam”), and meeting accessibility guidelines. As a result, many factors had to be carefully balanced throughout the process. A fun and complicated puzzle which is always a challenge!

Choosing Colours and Styles

Early on, we decided to pursue a darker UI direction rather than a lighter one. While there were several practical considerations behind this choice, the primary reason was that a darker style better complemented the in-game world.

Early visual concept, missing a lot of mechanics and features.

It allowed the interface to feel integrated rather than appearing as a separate overlay, ensuring it supported the experience without distracting from or pulling the player out of the game…but why blue you may be asking?

The Roman Empire made use of a wide range of colours, though some were far rarer than others and often restricted to specific social classes due to wealth and availability. One of the most prestigious was Tyrian purple, a colour strongly associated with power and status. Because of its rarity and cost, it was largely reserved for politicians, high-ranking officials, and emperors, symbolizing authority and imperial prestige.

Because Tyrian purple was intended to feel rare and powerful, we reserved it exclusively for significant moments within the experience, specifically as the selected state for buttons. This ensured the colour retained its sense of importance and visual impact and which can be seen in our early and final button concepts below.

Early button concepts exploring different styles and colour directions.

Final primary button states and styles.

In-engine breakdown and structure.

Blue, particularly a dark blue, proved to be the most suitable and preferred foundation colour for the UI. The chosen tones convey elegance and clarity while providing strong contrast for key elements such as whites, greens, reds, and yellows, ensuring both readability and functional clarity throughout the interface.

To prevent the interface from feeling overly flat, we introduced a subtle fabric texture. This added depth without overwhelming the design, as the background needed to remain understated to support a wide range of content layered on top of it. The goal was to create visual richness while maintaining clarity and flexibility.

We introduced variations in fabric tones to create a stronger sense of hierarchy and depth.

On top of these foundations, we later decided to introduce a secondary texture to the UI. Marble, a prominent material in Roman architecture, was a natural choice to explore. Since marble comes in a variety of colours and vein intensities, we selected a blue-tinted marble for the base, complemented by Tyrian purple veins to reference the rare and prestigious Tyrian colour, tying the texture back into the visual language of the UI.

Three different marble textures were created at varying sizes to optimize memory usage.

Decals, Details and Refining

Once the core of our UI style guide was locked in, we had the fun part ahead of us – polishing. We started refining patterns, tweaking visual details, and layering in elements that helped the interface feel more grounded to the time period.

A big focus was creating iconic shapes and ornamental motifs that could be reused in smart ways. We built them to be modular, so designers could mix and match pieces to create unique decals for different features in just a few clicks. This gave us the best of both worlds: a UI that feels cohesive overall but still has room for personality and variation where it matters.

A great example of our modular approach is the mosaic patterns you’ll see throughout the UI. We first designed the patterns in clean vector form, then transformed them into mosaic variations that fit the game’s aesthetic. Because the system was built to be flexible, we could quickly generate unique decorative elements without starting from scratch each time. The result? Strong visual consistency across the interface and a production process that saved the team a significant amount of time.

So how did we create so many scenes, and do it all on time?

As the UI visuals entered a more refined phase, the UI visual team began creating building blocks that could be used consistently throughout the game. While this document was by no means complete, given the numerous mechanics and systems that required bespoke visual solutions, it provided a foundational colour palette and reference materials that the UI department could rely on. The examples below showcase many of the visual elements that designers could access through the shared Adobe Creative Cloud.

Example asset sheet available in Adobe Creative Cloud as separate elements.

We maintained asset sheets containing all button states, textures, decorations, generic assets, and basic shapes, giving the team ready-to-use building blocks to streamline visual feature design. While these sheets covered reusable elements, many unique assets still needed to be created, a task that the visual sub-team actively supported throughout development.

So how do we construct elements?

Over the course of the project, creating new elements became increasingly efficient as more references and templates became available. Below is a brief breakdown of the process, showing how an element is generated and prepared for implementation into the engine.

Element examples to demonstrate how the UI can, and is, broken down.

Conclusion

While this only scratches the surface of the UI’s visual style evolution, I hope it provides some insight into why we chose the direction we have today. We continue to refine and enhance the style with every major update (including the upcoming update 1.5), ensuring it remains both visually cohesive and responsive to the game’s needs.