Gamestar Talk for Anno 117 - Transcript | Anno 1800 Dev Tracker | devtrackers.gg (2024)

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Okay, as the studio has decided to go international, but give the Gamestar exclusive infos via interview, I did a little transcript of the gamestars talk. Before you go nuts about certain statements, keep in mind that I did realtime transcription and nuance might be lost in translation. So hf with reading.

https://youtu.be/mMBOrKH-BHI?si=bUKTRxgfkOdm8YKB

The first first few minutes are about the trailer, so nothing very interesting here. There was Fabiano, Geraldine and Heiko talking live, and occasionally they showed clips from an interview they did with Manuel, Creative Director of Anno 117.

• Gamestar has some "exclusive info" they say.
• The game is set during pax romana like the title suggests

Fabiano :

• Second session "Albion", the celtic, north european region. As in the trailer shows the herald in latium and albion, a swampy region.
• The roman empire reached its largest extent ever in the year 117.
• Rome extended to pretty wild regions like britain, where no roman wants to be, like the devs said.

O-Tone of interview with Anno CD shown:

• We wanted to bring 2 sessions from the start, many systems in the game build on this
• We want to tell a slightly different story about rome, a very large empire of extremes, and we want to create stories and images that aren't there on the market yet.
• Researched Egypt as potential second session first, but settled on Albion, because it creates a big rift and contrast to the roman region.
• The celtic world seemed one of the most exciting settings to Mainz. It's about the suprise.

Heiko talking about the setting:

• I expected the setting and thinks its the most logical step for the brand.
• Wasn't sure because the opportunity of Anno 9 literally being called Anno 9
• Of what was in the roman era, pax romana made most sense as a setting.
• The reset is pretty much mandatory, because you are coming from the anno 1800 monster with 4 seasons.
• The setting avoids that 1800 content is compared to 117 because of historically being close to it.
• It's the second Anno that is presented at a Ubi Forward, after 2205 being the first (at E3).

Geraldine:

• Apparently the Mainz Studio wants to go international
• This Anno is the first to have a subtitle, which is unusual for german games
• The game is not a spin-off, which GameStar was a little unsure about and asked
• The Mainz Studio has decided on the subtitle because 117 wasn't clear enaugh of a number to be interpreted as a year, especially for people who don't know the series.
• There is a new Logo for Anno 117, a very stylized A, which stands for the rebrand. During the presentation, the Anno Brand Manager (Haye) told the Gamestar that the stylized A will represent Anno for at least the next 10 years.

Fabiano :

• I was very sceptical of the rebrand
• Ubisoft wants to focus content for the international community, which is why the rebrand makes a bit of sense.

Heiko:

• Anno 117 only comes 6 years after 1800, which is the longest for the series.
• This is due to games-as-a-service

Fabiano :

• The logo was intended to fit the roman epoch
• The logo alludes to roman craftsmanship
• Does the new logo mean that they want to stay in the antique era for the next 10 years?

Geraldine:

• Maybe, we are interpreting to much into it..

Heiko:

• Doesn't think that the game will be intended for 10 years

Heiko:

• The most exciting thing was that you can pick your start provice. Until this game, you had a large and multiple smaller sessions. Now, you can start where you want. This has many repercussions for gameplay.

Manuel (Anno CD):

• We know that complexity, as much as many players want and like it - we internally talk about the biggest anno - is a problem for many player. You gotta go to the next island, the next session. You gotta process, keep being active.
• This point is something we will adress. For example, you can pick starting session, Albion or Latium.
• You'll be able to build an empire, but the decision can be made earlier, you can access content earlier.
• If you want everything, you can still have everything.
• We want to give options, so players can search for their difficulty.
• It's about making things modular and opening up linearity.
• We know that for many players multi-session or multi-biome (!!) is something very cool. This complexity will still be there in Anno 117

Fabiano :

• It's pretty exciting, in theory, you're not forced to go to another session
• So, the classic anno fashion is: You need products from the new world, from orient.
• But now, to adress a bigger audience, to not scare players with forced complexity, you can choose, where you want to be and whether you wanna stay.
• Well, it has been a signal of quality of the series so far that complexity always happened organically.
• I think the community might be sceptical.

Geraldine:

• This was a point you asked multiple times just to be sure, because it seemed curious to you.
• Since there have been multiple session things to anno, the deal was that you are more or less forced to go there.

Fabiano :

• In theory, in 1404 the orient was kinda the same as a session

Heiko:

• It's a bit disappointing, because you could have just had Rome and the entire mediterranian sea on a huge map
• My dream antique anno would have been where you played multiple different factions/people, that would have been pretty demanding, especially in multiplayer
• I am interested, because they didn't tell, whether you play the same people in Albion and Latium, or whether it will be two.
• In my point of view, the trailer teasers that you will have different style of gameplay, because you just don't do things in a swamp that well.
• You might need to make the swamps habitable, or urbanize them

Geraldine:

• In Land of Lions, there also was a little urbinization

Fabiano :

• I have my thoughts about the different cultures. If you read between the lines in the interview, we might be up to something with the different cultures.
• Ubisoft told us: A reason why the epoch of pax romana is diverse is because there were many different cultures in the Imperium Romanum. And that was a adminstrative challenge.

Manuel (Anno CD):

• ... It's a mediterranian empire. People from 3 continents, 20% of world population. We asked ourselves: How was it, keeping the empire stable. How did people work together with their different cultures and backgrounds.
• We found it to be a very interesting angle to approach the topic from.
• Rome is always shown as this italy-thing, focused on military fantasy, but it was an empire that was stable for 200 years. How did they even do this?

Fabiano :

• The romans didn't say "We took Gallia, now we will replace every governor with our own", they didn't do that. They recruited the local head of town and made them loyal to them.
• They appropriated the culture of the local people, and over years, legions and administration, they let the provinces adapt to rome
• They weren't invasive, other than invading at first.
• The devs found diplomacy and politics very interesting, and I guess this will be a very important aspect. There will be a difference between having a town in Albion, or in Latium.
• very sure that because the roman empire had all those different regions, we might see Egypt, Greece and such in the future.

Heiko:

• Disregarding implementation, many different factions were also in 1503: Well, they were played by AI, but it shows that other factions always have been integral to the series.
• I hope that it goes into the direction of Orient (1404) and Land of Lions
• Just by game mechanics, I don't believe that it will make a big difference, as Anno is very sandboxy.
• I find more interesting how the choice of starting session will influence the peacefulness of the game experience. Because Inner rome was peaceful, but in the north, it was down to business, with the gauls, on the limes, and I am interested whether they will implement that.

Geraldine:

• I'd say, with two start sessions, we will have different cultures, very similar to anno 1800.
• The reason why that is interesting: Either they will be entirely seperated, if the Creative Director says you can choose, and you don't have to play both, and make up your own difficulty level
• This is getting closer to the community, but also it's about expanding the community. Many would have said with 1800, that they want even more sessions, but others wouldn't, and the discussion was very big.
• We asked them: Can we expect more sessions? They didn't give confirmation, but it seemed that they are expecting it themselves.

Heiko:

• They would be dumb to not do that. With that concept they held 1800 up for so long.
• 1800 is permanently in the ten most-searched games on the GameStar site, since release. I have never experienced that before.
• What I wonder is, regarding choice of starting province: How to do a campaign? You can't integrate it into continuous game, because you don't know where the player starts.
• The option would be to have two campaigns, one per session, that's my assumption
• Variant 2 would be a seperated campaign like 2070/1404/1701

Geraldine:

• I think they will still expect most people to go to both sessions.
• Probably it isn't that complicated
• Ubisoft said that story is an integral part of the identity.

Heiko:

• Session-specific stories like Land of Lions are very well a possibility
• But then, there would need to be different game mechanic
• Starting from zero two times in the same game would be dumb

Fabiano :

• The thought of not requiring leaving the session would even open up for more sessions to come.
• Because it can be very fun to not have all sessions all the time. You can start.
• For example, if there was an Egypt DLC, you could just play it in a new game.
• And Ubisoft might say: If you think your Anno is getting too big, just skip other sessions in a new game.
• In principle, you can extend that anno endlessly.
• The bad thing would be that you cannot interconnect that much.

Geraldine:

• If Fans discuss about this, it's gonna be people who want the entire experience.
• That concept can go wrong or right, but it's not only the factor of being open to newcomers. It's an admission that they want to add more sessions. What was criticized most about 1800 was not the amount, but it was hard to get everything put together if you got so many options. In your world, you had to reach a goal, a DLC was unlocked, you do an expedition to the new map, and then do a small campaign. What often happens is that you arrive to a new session late, and the AI already has everything, and you are arriving at the wrong time. It's not easy to get the sweetspot right.
• If they manage to solve this with autarc sessions, try it out with two at first, and then extend to 3 or 4, this might be a very good thing.

Fabiano :

• My worry is that the game is by ubisoft, and they are very eager to make things optional to open the game for many people.
• If complexity is optional, this can go wrong really quick. The Settlers is a prime example, because they made production chains like food optional. That makes playing worthless.
• If cool, interconnected production chains are made optional, this could go wrong really quick, that's my worry.

Heiko:

• I don't share that worry, they will keep to the Anno Union principle of community development, which worked very well.
• They stated that they won't dumb down 117, but we cannot have the same amount of complexity at release as 1800 has after 5 years.
• A big, unsung strength of Anno is the amount of configuration you can do on game start. That alone will adress many things. Don't want AI, you can turn it off.
• They will have a 4-5 years plan of post-launch, that won't work if everything is dumbed down, because you gotta get more out of game mechanics.

Geraldine:

• We'll get back to that in a minute. Of course, we asked Ubisoft about Seasons. It's something they think about, but not right now, and they don't make those plans right now, that's for later.

Manuel (Anno CD)

• We think Seasons worked well for 1800, it was very fair, it worked for fans and developers
• What and how, it's too early for that.

Geraldine:

• Coming back to the community driven development. We will experience 117 in a testing phase. They will try to slowly get there. See 1800, it got like 20 game updates with free content.
• They will now, with all the knowledge gained from 1800, they will go into that testing phase. They will make most of the decisions based on community feedback, especially in post-launch. This will probably decide how many seasons there will be.
• In my last interview for 1800, we talked about how the last 4 seasons worked, and deduct things for another anno. They put out a season, watched the reaction and only then decided whether to make the next one.

Heiko:

• Don't forget that 1800 was a huge package at release already, and it seems this is also the plan for 117.

Heiko:

• Another first for the game: The game will be multi-platform at start.
• That will definitly bring some worries to traditionalists

Fabiano :

• I asked the devs, for me it's important how they see and develop 1800 with console version being around.
• I have my negative experiences with it, I have seen how game series developed when console was in focus and the PC perspective just didn't feel right.
• But I think it's good that they made the console version of 1800 first to see how it works on consoles.
• It showed, the game can work on console. The devs have seen the same details in the statistics, and it isn't played very differently.
• Now they are developing 117 from the start as a dual-platform game. They know that their core community is on PC, they know that things have to be top on that platform. They said that it can't be that the console version drags down the console version.
• But Console will influence questions like how to design the UI?
• I was pretty soothed after I heard their answers, and I have my hopes up for this to turn out well.

Geraldine:

• Just to say it, the only critique with the console version was missing DLC. This would have been much effort, and they probably said that they can't invest the time to do that.
• I think very much that this will not be the case with 117 and all DLC will also launch on console.

Heiko:

• I think they confirmed it by saying that this game is a parallel development for both platform.
• With 1800 it was a testbed after-the-fact.

Geraldine:

• One of the most polarising questions was on changing the chessboard-rasterized tiles, whether to change or keep them.
• Personally, I get the critique, especially for the visuals, but it's such an integral part of brand identity if you'd remove it. An Anno without tiles would not be an anno.
• The reason I say that is because playing tetris is a part of the game, finding layouts.
• Anno is not a city-builder, but a citybuilding puzzle.
• Everything is about tiles. Public buildings satisfy by tile range for example. Removing that, everything will change.
• In the presentation, they talked about the logo and it's symmetry being a nod to the raster. Now for the curious: I asked about whether there will be a reform, and they said that they right now can't say anything.
• So, theory, there will be a raster, but maybe there will be reform

Heiko:

• It's hard to imagine Anno without the raster.
• I laughed because they have picked the perfect setting for a raster, because the romans have planned their cities that way.
• I can imagine, but that's speculation, there might be a split between roman cities and other cities, that there will be different ways of building things and cities will look differently.
• Maybe, in the villages, there will be more organic streets.

Fabiano :

• In celtic settlements, they might use visual design to hide the rasterization a little, so the buildings connect to pathways better.

Geraldine:

• I made a list with theories even:
  1. It's a visual thing only. The mechanic is a raster, but the visuals hide it, like Fabiano said.
  2. Often wished variant, even done with mods: 45 degree angles. We know from the mods that it is possible.
  3. Also a mod, and it was in the Pharao game: Having buildings be modular and connect to each other. There is a mod for 1800 that does that for factories, if you build three of them, they snap together to be a factory complex.
  4. Nonrectangular buildings would be a variant

Heiko:

• If you were ever in doubt who is the biggest beauty-builder, here you got the answer.
• Of course there will be cosmetic DLCs. That's such a quick buck for Ubisoft.

Geraldine:

• We asked ourselves whether there will be naked roman statues, or if they will need to hide it somehow.

Heiko:

• They didn't have problems with that in AC Odyssey

Fabiano :

• Speaking of statues, they had the purpose of showing people who the emperor governing them is.
• I want statues and temples.
• Sadly, I didn't manage to ask them about religion, because that is very integral.
• Building pantheons and temples was pretty important
• Oh and I want the Colosseum and Circus Maximus.

Geraldine:

• We had limited time and were prioritizing questions during our Interview, and the monument question was low-prio. Of course there will be some.
• We know from 1800 that they get inspired by reallife monuments and just rebrand them a little.

Heiko:

• Regarding monuments, I have the open question of whether they might go back to 2205. No monumental builds, but big builds at predefined places.
• That would fit with hadrians wall or limes very well
• You could build it successively

Fabiano :

• In the scenarios of 1800, there were monuments like the dam on the eco-island, so they did it there too.

Geraldine:

• Let's go towards a conclusion.
• We had asked them: How do you handle rebeginning after 1800. That's the gold standard now. Creating a new game is a step backwards. Let's show the interview clip

Manuel (Anno CD)

• There will be areas where we just cannot reach 1800 with 117 at launch, like scope. We must accept that.
• But we tried to analyze 1800, what worked, what didn't. We took that as reference to change and improve things. Not only for players, but also how we handle the game.
• Anno 1800 is a monster, and 117 will be smaller at launch. We just have to approach it with the promise of eventually reaching something grand, and we want to have something very good at launch.

Geraldine:

• We already said it, it's gonna come out in 2025.
• They were in main production for a year now.
• The concept phase was very very old. Fun fact, the idea has been around for like 11 years. There was an image leak 11 years ago from a dev meeting, where you had an Anno 117.

Heiko:

• That doesn't mean anything. They might have like ten potential settings lying around. We also know that after 1701, 1800 was initially supposed to be the successor. But the timeframe was too close for them.
• Mainz works very well with focusgroup tests. They ask people like me what we'd find interesting.
• They have many options, and now there was the ideal time to go to the antique era.

Fabiano :

• And it was a big wish of the community as well.
• For this, they had 6 settings in closer consideration, but eventually went with this.
• Lately we had news on the gamestar, someone wrote about Anno 180 because of a typo. And a reader wrote about being excited about an antique anno for a moment in the comments only to be disappointed - And now it's coming.

Geraldine:

• Asia was a big wish for 1800 as well, and people wanted that as the next session - and when that didn't came, they wanted it to be the next anno.
• I'd pay 5 bucks to find out what the other settings were.
• Martin wrote about potential settings a few months ago which even included 1305

Heiko:

• That was a nice gag when they made fun of all the journalists on the 2070 reveal, you saw an Anno plank with 1305 on the monitor. And then the camera zoomed out and it was a holographic video screen in Anno 2070.

Geraldine:

• 1305 is also in the credits of 1800, just to make us angry.
• We are at a moment where we didn't see any gameplay.
• But after 1800, we have some basic trust into the studio, because we know the community driven strategy works
• We'll do more talks and hopefully get them for interviews again.

Heiko:

• If the game is coming out next year, chances will be that they'll show gameplay on Gamescom.

Geraldine:

• Let's see we didn't forget something

Fabiano :

• We left out that fighting and combat topic, because they didn't say anything about it.
• The only hint on a combat system was where we asked what game pillars of Anno are
• They answered: The mix of different elements, in part "grand strategy" with all the AI players.
• In the interview, they said that you can either get along diplomatically, or it will come to skirmishes. And that sounded like it's an aspect they will have it.
• Just sea battles would be pretty boring, even more so than in 1800.
• But we'll see some military stuff I guess, as that was so important in ancient rome, who controlled the army had power.

Heiko:

• You cannot go into the age of Asterix without romans fighting each other.

Geraldine:

• People who talked to me at least once: I ain't a fan of fighting in Anno. Sadly 1800 has its weaknesses in that regard, but I don't care, I want my christmas market.
• However, it would have been nice if they improved that.

Fabiano :

• A challenge of games in ancient times is plentiness of goods. You don't have things like Scooters there.
• Interesting production chains would be weapons: Shields, swords, javelins. It would be wasted if we couldn't produce something like that.

Heiko:

• I was suprised when hearing Grand Strategy being announced that prominently.
• The game was grand strategy, but the military was pretty small.
• I hope they will do a similar system like 1404 with global-tactic decisions, where you find with legions, not individual units. Would be fitting for the setting.

Geraldine:

• Because you said production chains: I asked them about a hint for a production chains..

Fabiano : ... And they disconnected.

Geraldine:

• They were talking to us from LA, and everything was fine, but the second I asked that, the screen froze, and I thought I asked the forbidden question.
• Well, they were back after a minute.
• But they only gave a hint, a production chain was hiding in the colors of the presentation.

Fabiano :

• Our assumption: Purpur, that was the most valuable color of ancient times.
• You need to fish for the snails first, that would be super fitting.

Geraldine:

• That fits what you do in 1800 and before, with the coastal buildings, so a snail fishery it will be probably.

Fabiano :

• They told about three goods. First, purpur is our interpretation, but they also namedropped two examples during the interview when talking about resource shortages:
• Stuff like Terracotta and limestone.
• Speculation, but that wasn't by accident, that they thought of those two goods.

Heiko:

• I want a good story campaign that includes all game elements and doesn't stop after tier 3 of 5. #salty

Fabiano :

• Anno virtues: I want interconnection, new resources in different sessions, many resources. I want cool production chains, cool trade. And I am interested in whether they will keep their promise of showing ingame how the Roman empire was administrated.

Geraldine:

• Christmas market ornaments.
• Well, I wish to get many ornaments again.

Afterwards, there is a lot of talkie-talkie with thanks, nothing relevant anymore.

External link →

2 daysago -/u/Ubi-Thorlof-Direct link

I would say: wait a bit for when we go more in-depth on those topics.

Having the option to do X doesn't mean you don't have the option to do Y. One key principle for us is player choice.