Ubisoft first announced Anno 117: Pax Romana earlier this year, but outside of a broad launch window, not much was shared about the game. Today, in a blog update, developer Ubisoft Mainz provided some details on how the development is ongoing and what it has learned from recent playtests. Some environmental screenshots were even shared from pre-release builds.
The studio held its largest playtest yet in September for the upcoming city-building strategy game.
Here are the biggest improvements it has made to the game recently:
- We have made large steps in regard to the islands and terrain, having recently overhauled many of the island designs as well as trees and rock textures and – going by the feedback from the last internal presentation – reached “I want to go there on vacation” territory.
- Since a few months, there now also are work-in-progress versions of NPCs and the diplomacy system to deal with – no more “I can grab any island I want” situations in the playtests. Time to build more Triremes and protect those trade routes!
- The life of your citizens has always been an important aspect of Anno, and Anno 117: Pax Romana is no different. Reason enough for our animator to add a completely new set of feedback units (people and animals) to the game. Plus, we went and did some motion-capture!
- We’ve also made great strides on the topic of controller support, building on the learnings of Anno 1800’s console version. Providing the best experience for each platform without negatively impacting another remains one of our key principles.
As an "early Christmas present," the studio also gave a look at some islands it will have players populate in the full game. The embedded images are from the Latium and Albion provinces. The studio also wanted fans to know that these are from a work-in-progress version of Anno 117.
From the two provinces, Latium is known as a land set in the heart of the Roman Empire with "wide open areas, sandy beaches, lavender fields and cliffs to stand on and watch the sunset from." Meanwhile, Albion is described as a land that's not familiar to Roman legions, containing "rocky landscapes with high cliffs and mountains, marshy areas, fog and rain."
As Ubisoft moves away from PC platform exclusivity, it also confirmed Anno 117: Pax Romana will have a day-one launch on Steam alongside Ubisoft Connect, Epic Games Store, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 platforms. The game is slated to launch sometime in 2025.
The last entry in the franchise, Anno 1800, is about to receive its final content pack, too. The DLC, aptly named End of an Era, will land on December 5 as a standalone purchase as well as part of the Cosmetic Pack Bundle #2.
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