Anno 1800, the industrial-age city builder by Ubisoft’s Blue Byte and Mainz studios, will come to consoles in March.
The announcement came as a bit of surprise. Anno 1800 will become the first mainline title in the series’ 24-year history to arrive on console. Prior to this, the spin-off Anno: Create A New World on Nintendo DS and Wii, was the only other title in the series ever to make it to a console. What’s even more interesting about this new Anno 1800 port is that the PC version does not, at the time of writing, feature controller support. I imagine there will be a few PC players interested to know if Ubisoft plans to update the game with the new controller inputs. I know a few PC players that love to enjoy Anno on the couch without having to drag a keyboard and mouse over.
Ubisoft went into detail on what players can expect in the console version during an hour-long livestream on its Twitch channel earlier this morning.
The console version will be the complete Anno 1800 package, with all of its currently available DLC. All of the game’s online modes, including campaign co-op and PVP will make the jump as well. The game will support crossplay and cross-saves across the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions, but PC will not be included in those pools. The team has done a UI pass as well, creating new, larger icons and radial menus for 4K TVs.
Those who preorder the game, or pick it up within 30 days of release, will get an Early Adopter pack that contains the Imperial Pack from the PC version’s Deluxe Edition as well a Console Founder Pack containing a suite of exclusive portraits, city ornaments, vehicle skins and company logos.
There’s always a risk in porting a complex strategy title like Anno 1800 to console. How do you keep it from overwhelming the player? How do you jam the functionality and dexterity of a keyboard and mouse into a controller? Designers have been trying to solve these genre problems for decades. Anno 1800 looks like a fairly smooth transition so far, but I watch with interest to see how the final product shakes out.
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