The Anno series has a long history, starting in 1998 with Anno 1602: Creation of the New World. Since then the series has taken players to 1503, 1701, 1404, 2070, and now, 2205. The only Anno title I have played before getting the opportunity to play 2205 was actually 1404, better known as Dawn of Discovery. I played through it on the Wii and really enjoyed it. Not to live in the past, but Dawn of Discovery struck an excellent balance between fun, challenge, triumph, and closure.
I’ve yet to get around to playing 2070, but let’s fast forward to 2205 which I have spent a few hours with this past week. Like Dawn of Discovery, 2205 is the type of game you can sink a lot of hours into. The basic premise behind 2205 is that you’re running a corporation, or multiple corporations if you’d like, and you’re trying to build up your virtual empire and push technology forward. There is a faint story about another moon colonizer who you have to deal with and other corporations that might give you some trouble, but generally, focus on your own assets and you’re going to be just fine. From the very start, as you’re naming your Corporation and choosing from one of a few dozen logos and so forth, 2205 has a very clean futuristic feel and presentation. The HUD, voiceovers, and general feel lend themselves towards promoting a sense of being a CEO managing trillion dollar futuristic colonies from the comfort of his PC.
The principles behind Anno 2205 are similar to its predecessors, with some notable differences. Many of these were unknown to me without doing a bit of research since my previous experience was just the Wii game aforementioned. First, there is no multiplayer, but you could have asked me two days ago and I wouldn’t have known that Anno ever had multiplayer. The RTS combat aspect of 2205 is simplified and not a strong point, so much in fact that it can actually be skipped so players can focus on managing their population and its issues. In many respects, 2205 seems to take a more casual, hands-off approach to players, but, this isn’t to say that you won’t be plenty busy interacting with the HUD and planning your build. You can get into financial trouble but the game does want you to keep playing, so you’ll get some help if your credit dips too low. Generally anyone with some RTS or city-building experience is likely to do just fine, to the point that part of me wondered that 2205 wasn’t becoming a tad too casual.
The joy of playing 2205 and similar games, at least for me, does not come from failing and restarting missions or parts of missions, though. Rather, the thought of having several hours to kick back and build up your empire and unlock new blueprints and open up a new colony and setup transport between the Earth and Moon — these are all reasons to start 2205 and to stick with it. The economy is deep enough to provide a challenge, and the massive amount of structure types and resources and products that your residents need means there’s always something to build or upgrade, too.
The lush graphics certainly help, too. On my GTX970 I ran in Ultra detail, but there are a lot of graphical knobs and things you can tweak to adjust things to your machine’s capabilities. Changes can be made to the Resolution, Window Size, AA, Texture, Shader, Lighting, Shadow, Object, Terrain, and Water Quality, Crowds, and View Distance. Between these options and the elegant HUD design, and of course very nice artwork, Anno 2205 is a beautiful game with a soothing soundtrack to boot.
Anno 2205 takes the series further into the future, but some of its core fans are likely to be disappointed with some of its feature omissions and simplifications. Still, for series newcomers (which I consider myself), or for those who enjoy Anno, it’s well worth checking out.