I played Anno 117: Pax Romana: A safe sequel for fans of ancient Rome is coming through

When I entered the remains of Horti Sallustiani, or the Gardens of Sallust, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. What will the new Anno actually be? A brave revolution? Capitalizing on achieved success? A reskin of Anno 1800? Maybe a failed experiment?

In the remnants of the Roman pavilions from the 1st century BC, Ubisoft set up dozens of computer stations, hung opaque curtains, and let us play Anno 117: Pax Romana for a few hours. Now, in the comfort of my own home, I'm reviewing over 3 hours of recorded gameplay and everything indicates that this will be a very solid game, with proven solutions from Anno 1800 seemingly all well refined. That's it. Actually, that's a lot.

At the same time, I have no idea if this will be enough to satisfy the players, and just 3 hours of gameplay did not allow to go beyond the game's initial phase. It's quite likely that new mechanics will gain importance as our little empire grows, and the game will gain more momentum. But that's just guesswork, and we should focus on what I actually had the chance to try. My colleague, when sharing his impressions after the pre-premiere test of Anno 2205, wrote that "a new game is coming, but it's hard to shake the feeling that there are too few new ideas in it." I couldn't have put it better.

Please reheat Anno 1800, darling

A week before the trip, I practically spent every free moment playing Anno 1800 with most of the add-ons, so that I could compare the current and representatives of the series. Anno 1800 is currently a complete product, which has been expanded over the years with additional biomes, so apart from the standard Old and New World, we also received Africa and the Arctic (and Cape Trelawney, but that's essentially the same as the Old World).

Why I mention this? Because the first impressions of Anno 117 are as if it was just a new biome of Anno 1800. Such Anno 180. And all the while I can't really tell if this is really the biggest advantage, or disadvantage of Anno 117. The game is still incredibly addictive, but in the first few hours, the announced changes and minor revolutions turn out to have a relatively small impact on making the gameplay fell fresh. It may be worth building walls and recruiting an army, but in the demo version, militarism was only symbolically marked. Although there are deities and specializations of islands resulting from their cult, the effects increase with the progress of the game, while the initial ones were quite insignificant.

I'll candidly it that, for the first hour, I completely ignored the news and played it as if I was still in the times of the industrial revolution. And it went surprisingly well for me – I actually didn't feel like I was missing anything in of gameplay. And the learned patterns allowed me to develop the first island much faster and settle the neighboring ones, which contained strategic resources.

If we spent a lot of time in Anno 1800, we will easily find our bearings in Anno 117. The core of gameplay, main mechanics, as well as the construction of the world consisting of small islands with diverse resources, and the reliance of the entire logistics system on maritime transport – if we understood all this while playing other parts of the series, we will find our way here without problems.

Roadside amusements

One of the biggest revolutions that have been shown so far is an innovative road system, which will not only allow for the construction of perfectly straight grids measured from a ruler, but also – attention – tilt them by 45 degrees. If you are fans of titles in which roads are created organically (such as Foundation), you probably just laughed, but in the case of Anno, it's actually a big deal – this series relies heavily on grid, and in Anno 1800, I spent an alarming amount of time counting squares to properly arrange my buildings. Although cities created in this way do not have the realistic charm that enchanted players in Manor Lords, this is due to the mechanics of Anno itself, based on building hundreds of houses on islands, so some unification is even recommended for the convenience of the player.

The construction of diagonal roads is a massive change that will appeal to players who have so far complained about the excessive "Manhattanization" of the street layout; now cities gain a bit of chaos and irregularity, and we can easily connect points placed diagonally from each other. We can also rotate buildings in such a way as to adapt them to certain roads, which allows us to create "alternative" grids and make better use of irregular space. And small empty areas in the city can be filled with roads and paved triangular squares, which will add some realism to our buildings.

At the same time, if we approach Anno like we would StarCraft and want to "min-max" at all costs, i.e. to create the most efficient buildings in the shortest possible time to gain an advantage over the enemies, we will probably stick to the good'ol rectangular building blocks, copied onto subsequent islands.

Build a house, father a son, and plant a tree (of technology)

When creating Anno 117, the developers paid a lot of attention to the ability to customize the gameplay to their own preferences, which they emphasized in conversations and during presentations. One of the effects of this decision is a technology tree that will allow us to adapt the game to our style.

Related:Anno 117 in first gameplay screenshots. Devs showcased new citizens' needs system

The assumption is that there will be... too much technology. According to the creators, only the most determined players will unlock the entire tree, while the typical casual player will likely focus on one of its branches that best suits their needs. Although it's difficult to determine whether this will actually be the case at the moment, because the development of technology during the first hours of gameplay is quite slow.

Technologies are grouped into three main categories: economy, society, and military. There are really a lot of possibilities to unlock and the creators emphasized in the conversation that in classic gameplay, the player will rather focus on specializing in one of these three pillars. Unlocking all technologies will be possible too, although it will be reserved for the most ambitious players, planning a very long gameplay.

When in fear, turn to God

The issue of religion and gods promises to be very interesting. We will be able to dedicate each island to a deity chosen by us, which in return will bless it with its favor. In practice, this translates into increasing bonuses for the production of goods, crops, or military strength as the island develops. Thanks to this, we will be able to give a clear specialization to a given island.

In the game, I got to see Roman gods — like Mars, who focused on the military, Ceres watching over the harvest, and Neptune, in charge of all things maritime. Celtic gods were also featured, including Epona, linked to cavalry, and Cernunnos, the Horned God of the Forest

We were not given the opportunity to travel to the second region, Albion, but the descriptions of the effects of gods unveiled a bit of the mystery of what this world will look like. We can even expect beavers – their numbers will be increased by Cernunnos.

Once you select a deity and dedicate your island to them, the faith points you gather will upgrade the effects of their blessing. Ceres, for example, will offer an increasing bonus to agricultural production, as well as a bonus population from each house.

In the early stages of the game, it doesn't matter too much, but as needs grow, a well-chosen specialization can significantly facilitate gameplay. Especially since the exchange of goods between islands will be necessary anyway, as none of them have all the necessary resources.

They are coming by land, my lord

What intrigued me the most were the land units, which you can recruit and then control — much like ships — in a somewhat RTS-like style. Unfortunately, in the demo, it was only possible to recruit troops, move on land, and transport by ships. We were not given the opportunity to test out a battle.

Potentially, this could turn the game upside down – after all, we could feel somewhat unpunished when building islands in Anno 1800 until now, where a well-fortified port deterred the opponent, while on land, we could do whatever we wanted. Although players who , for example, Anno 1404, will probably be especially interested in the return of land-based skirmishes.

Now, fortifications and land troops are returning, but in a slightly different form than in Anno 1404. As a rule, the consequences of such a decision are similar. Each island has several coastlines where enemy troops can land, which leads to a completely different approach to city building and development planning. However, ground units are supposed to be very expensive and enforce military specialization somehow – whether it's islands or even our entire faction.

In the demo, it was possible to recruit three types of units – Slingers, Auxilia and gladiators Murmillo Gladiator. Each unit has its strengths and weaknesses and is effective against different types of enemies. The cost of recruitment and maintenance also differs significantly – for example, maintaining light infantry requires only 60 coins, while gladiators cost as much as 300.

We still don't know how many unit types will be available, but aside from the three already revealed, cavalry is likely to be included — a unit that Auxilia counters effectively.

The creators seem somewhat afraid of excessive subversiveness of such mechanics, which may not appeal to fans of relatively stress-free building in the previous installment of the series. That's why, during the presentation and in conversations, they repeatedly emphasized that land battles will be optional and entirely up to the player's decision. What does it actually mean? Well... I don't know, but I hope it won't result in total ivity of AI opponents in this regard.

And what's under the hood of this chariot? 4080 horses and one donkey with reins

It's hard to assess the optimization of the game at this stage, because the gaming rigs prepared by Ubisoft were equipped with RTX 4080 cards, so the hardware is quite powerful. The game's performance is commendable – throughout more than three hours of uninterrupted gameplay, including extended periods at maximum speed, I encountered no lag, freezes, or crashes. It seems like no biggie, yet you can't say that about every recent game.

We played in 4K and the game ran smooth as silk at the highest graphic settings. What remains uncertain is how weaker graphics GPUs will handle the game, and whether performance issues might arise in the later stages, when the world becomes densely built-up — a situation that often puts significant strain on the U in city builders. However, this can only be checked closer to the release, when we get the full release.

For now, though, it seems technically solid and largely free of significant bugs or performance problems.

As you eat, your appetite increases, but will there just be an appetizer on the menu?

Anno 117 will not have an easy task. Like other titles built around a long-term DLC release plan, the base game may feel relatively light on content — especially when compared to a mature product like Anno 1800.

Initial impressions indicate that the amount of content will likely be on par with that in the previous entry. We will get 2 regions with quite a large number of production chains – this should provide several to a dozen hours of gameplay. It’s a good starting point, but it seems that the real key to success will lie in a well-communicated expansion plan and timely release of additional content.

We don’t yet know how many DLCs are planned or how frequently they’ll be released, but it’s likely that new content will follow a similar structure to the previous installment – with expansions introducing new regions, extending production chains, and adding fresh gameplay mechanics.

Conservative-Revolutionary Front

Anno 117 uses proven tools to create engaging gameplay with a large number of production chains and complex logistics, which will force the player to do strategic planning and crisis management. It worked great in Anno 1800 and was largely copied to Anno 117.

The deity system and the technology tree are both welcome features, allowing players to tailor the gameplay to their preferences and make the most of the islands they’ve settled. Diagonal roads indeed represent a small revolution, although primarily an aesthetic one, as players focused on maximizing efficiency will probably still build "the old way". Although this may sometimes allow for fitting more buildings on an irregular island.

The biggest mystery are land battles and their impact on mechanics. The creators have so far only enabled the recruitment of units and their movement on the map, so it is difficult to assess the entire system at this stage.

The initial phase of the game strongly resembles what we know from Anno 1800, and I have some concerns whether Anno 117 will ultimately be able to offer enough novelty. However, it seems that as our empire develops, new mechanics will increasingly influence the gameplay and thus distinguish it from what know from the previous installment. Of course, that’s just speculation based on the described features – we’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.

The release of Anno 117 is just the beginning, similar to what happened after the release of Anno 1800. The "bare" game will most likely only offer 2 regions and standard mechanics. However, as with the previous part, we will probably be able to count on a number of DLCs, which will bring both new biomes and mechanics as well as production chains.

Anno 117: Pax Romana

Q4 2025

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• Overview

• Ubisoft
• economic strategies / tycoon
• Anno (series)
• PC