Anno 117: Pax Romana preview – All as it should be

It’s a wonderful feeling when the first hour of a game fulfills all the expectations you had for it, as rare a case as that is. Playing an hour of Anno 117: Pax Romana at Gamescom 2025 was such an occasion.

Ubisoft put a special emphasis on decision-making in this long-awaited series entry and this was already apparent even before the game really kicked off. For this demo, we could choose Latium or Albion as playable regions. Latium – Rome’s origin region – is recommended for beginners: It has lush Mediterranean coasts surrounded by tranquil, turquoise waters and no disagreeable barbarians to speak of.

Albion – based on Britain – is the opposite of that: Its islands are rough and marshy and full of Celts, who come with their own traditions, likes, and dislikes. Playing in Latium is very different from playing in Albion, so there’s your first big decision. I chose Albion for my run, as it seemed more interesting to dive into Anno 117’s Romanization mechanics for a bit.

Things start off in the accustomed manner, though: You have an empty island save for your first port building and your initial ship, so building the first couple of residences and establishing your supply of basic building materials are the first steps. That’s when things already get interesting.

Fulfilling the needs of your population is still the way to upgrade them to higher levels, but every need can be fulfilled in two different ways. The basic clothing needs of Celts, for example, can be satisfied by producing tunics or shoes. Both require different production chains and produce different bonus effects. Tunics sold at the market provide extra income to your settlement, whereas shoes increase happiness. Anno 117 doesn’t ask you to stubbornly repeat building the same production chains in every game. Instead, you make conscious decisions on how to go about fulfilling those needs throughout the game, adapting to the current situation.

This goes for upgrading your population as well, because that’s where the Romanization comes into play. When you reach the next settlement tier, you can decide to pursue Romanization and upgrade your houses to attract different inhabitants. The Romano-Celtic path unlocks Mercators and Nobles, while sticking to the Celtic path unlocks Smiths and Aldermen. Both branches come with exclusive goods and different gameplay focuses.

The Romano-Celtic population strives to do as the Romans do, so they are great at trade and research and desire exotic luxuries, while the Celtic population is more grounded and uses the region’s marshes to their fullest extent. Making this decision heavily shapes your game. It’s not just the goods you can and want to produce, but different architecture styles and buildings, and a focus on research or religion. The island itself will change depending on your choice, because the Romano-Celtic population won’t have use for swamps — you’ll likely want to build a canal system to dry the area and transform it into fertile land to farm crops like wheat.

Every decision you make feels impactful in some way, be it reflected in your ledgers or directly on the map.

Building placement figures into this aspect as well. Instead of splitting residential and industrial districts like you’d usually do in the predecessors, you’ll actually want to place some production buildings close to your housing, as there are beneficial synergies between certain buildings — but not all effects are positive (such as fire hazards), so it becomes this interesting puzzle to solve, where you try and find the best compromise between logistics, synergies, and aesthetics.

Speaking of building stuff: Anno 117’s tools are excellent. You can easily copy and paste entire neighborhoods, rotate them as you like, and even build diagonally now. You can also find stats for pretty much any good or process in the game, making it easy to find any bottlenecks. Mass upgrades and other quality-of-life features are already there as well.

Ubisoft made Anno 117 look and sound amazing. A mix of flutes, cithers, and horns plays as the ship you send out your ship to explore the map, sailing past majestic cliffs covered in white fog. Naturally, the soundtrack evolves depending on what’s happening in the game, so if barbarians attack you, which can happen if you’re too aggressive on the Romanization efforts, the horns will blare aggressively, as if signaling a charge during battle. As night falls, your city comes alive with the glow of torches — which isn’t that great for building. But you can switch between times at any point, so it’s no big deal. The vibes of this game are simply immaculate.

As always in the Anno series, your neighbors are competitors as much as partners and you can start accepting contracts from them right after encountering them, such as rescuing some cargo floating in the sea or delivering goods.

Changes made compared to previously seen versions of the game became apparent as well. A central building of your town – the governor’s villa – is no longer expandable over time. Instead, upgrades unlock additional item slots to boost your settlement with. This system still appears to be in a state of flux. 

I didn’t get to play with this much, but the religion system looks super interesting, as you can get different islands to specialize in worshipping different gods, which in turn boost specific resource chains or other aspects, such as improved martial training.

Remaining as my biggest question mark after having some time with the game is the military system. I trained some militia troops at my villa during my playthrough – way too early, I think, because they drained my coffers – but didn’t really get into any fights.

Anno 117, at this point, looks like an ideal successor to the lauded Anno 1800. It builds on the predecessor’s fundamentals, but innovates and tweaks things to make them more interesting. Moreover, the Roman theme is very well executed with Romanization being a core mechanic.

Anno 117: Pax Romana is set to come to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on November 13, 2025.

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