Anno 117: Pax Romana finally puts story first—now prove it matters

Why Anno 117’s Roman leap caught my eye

I lost count of how many times I rebuilt Crown Falls in Anno 1800, so a Roman-era Anno with a proper, branching campaign immediately piqued my interest. Ubisoft Mainz says Anno 117: Pax Romana is letting us choose a protagonist-Marcus or Marcia-and make story-driven choices that shape our province. That’s a first for the series, which historically treated campaigns as extended tutorials before unleashing the real sandbox. The promise is clear: more narrative weight, more consequence, same Anno brain-tickling economy.

• Branching, character-led campaign with two playable governors (a series first).
• Year 1 Pass includes three DLCs: a volcanic mega-island, a Hippodrome monument, and an Egyptian-inspired province.
• Signals deeper culture/religion systems via “gods” and prestige-potentially big for city buffs.
• Launches November 13, 2025 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Amazon Luna, and PC (Steam, Epic, Ubisoft Connect).

Breaking down the announcement

The campaign frames you as a Roman governor, picking between Marcus (young, insecure appointee) or Marcia (rising against expectations). That’s not just flavor text if Mainz follows through—two perspectives should mean different pressures, allies, and failure states, not just alternate VO. The press notes repeatedly stress “choices with consequences,” along with selections around province, gods, technology, and military. If that’s more than modifiers on a tooltip, we’re in for the most reactive Anno to date.

Year 1 Pass content arrives in three beats: Provinces of Ash (the largest island ever in Anno, with a volcano and a new deity), The Hippodrome (a mega-project inspired by the Circus Maximus, complete with chariot races), and Dawn of the Delta (a desert-and-river province with unfamiliar gods and culture). It’s bundled with the Gold Edition or sold separately.

The real story behind these features

This all sounds very Anno—in a good way. Anno 1800 lived off a steady cadence of season passes that actually changed how you played: The Passage added airships and brutal logistics, Land of Lions brought irrigation networks and a brilliant scholar meta, and Crown Falls gave us that gigantic canvas to break our economies on. Reading between the lines, Provinces of Ash feels like a spiritual successor to Crown Falls with a twist: a volcano. If Mainz leans into disaster and terrain risk, that’s not just a bigger island—it’s a planning puzzle where lava and ash become supply chain variables.

The Hippodrome screams late-game prestige build, akin to 1800’s World’s Fair or Palace of the City. If chariot races tie into happiness, tourism, or a specialist economy (think 1800’s item chase), it could provide a meaningful loop beyond “build for beauty.” The risk is obvious: if it’s just another prestige sink with timers and flat buffs, veterans will min-max it once and move on.

Dawn of the Delta sounds like Anno’s next “Enbesa moment” (1800’s best DLC), swapping European farmland for desert engineering. Give us water rights, canal networks, flood cycles, and cultural demands that don’t mirror Roman cities, and you’ve got a fresh brain-burn. The mention of “gods” across DLCs and the base campaign hints at a religion or patronage layer. That could be massive—citizen needs, festivals, moral trade-offs—if it’s systemic and not just a slider with themed buffs.

Why this matters now (and where I’m skeptical)

The Anno series has always been about elegant logistics wrapped in cozy cityscapes. Narrative never drove the experience. If Anno 117 genuinely delivers a character-led campaign with meaningful forks, that’s a real evolution—not just a new coat of Roman paint. On the flip side, “your choices matter” is the oldest line in the scroll. I want to see stakes: do I accept a brutal tax to placate Rome at the cost of unrest? Do gods conflict, forcing me to anger one population segment to appease another? Can Marcia’s path open solutions that Marcus’s can’t?

On DLC, I’m cautiously optimistic. Mainz is one of the few teams that earned trust by making expansions that rewire the meta rather than selling reskins. But this is still a Year 1 Pass tied to a Gold Edition on day one. Expect a long tail of paid content, probably cosmetic packs too, because that’s the model. That’s fine if the base game stands tall on its own and the DLCs are optional systems, not fixes for a thin launch.

Console players should take note: day-one PS5 and Series X|S support matters. 1800’s console UI was smart and playable, but performance and late-game pathfinding can melt CPUs when your trade routes look like spaghetti. If the “largest island ever” shows up in a story context, the team needs to prove next-gen consoles can handle mega-cities without turning the endgame into a slideshow.

What gamers need to know before launch

Circle November 13, 2025. If you’re eyeing the Gold Edition for the Year 1 Pass, wait for details on how each DLC modifies systems—not just map size or cosmetics. Watch for how religion, prestige, and provincial politics surface in minute-to-minute play: policies, edicts, process chains, and citizen demands. And pay attention to Mainz’s community beats—the Anno Union approach has historically turned feedback into real gameplay tweaks.

My wishlist going in: a campaign that resists being a tutorial, a Hippodrome that’s more than a buff factory, volcano risk that creates planning drama without pure RNG punishment, and a Delta province that asks you to unlearn Roman habits. If those land, Anno 117 could be the most replayable entry since 1404 and the most approachable since 1800.

TL;DR

Anno 117 promises the series’ first genuinely branching campaign and a Year 1 Pass with systems-heavy DLCs, not just map packs. It all sounds great—now Ubisoft Mainz needs to prove those “choices” reshape how we build, trade, and rule, not just how our cities look on a postcard.