A game whose title numbers all add up to 9
Anno 1800 is one of the most successful urban management strategy games in recent years, and it is also the highest-selling one in the series, selling more than four times the previous game in the first week and breaking through a million players in March this year.
As one of the most acclaimed games in the Anno series in recent years, Anno 1800 is set in the 19th century, just when the industrial age was just beginning. Players want to create a city that has both the style of the classical era and many production and life scenes that modern people are familiar with. Players build complex production and trade chains in it, and watching a desert island gradually turn into a majestic city gives people an indescribable sense of satisfaction.
In terms of gameplay, the core gameplay of the Anno series is a relatively niche one. Real-time strategy games like StarCraft focus on microscopic operations and extreme operations that are accurate to milliseconds. The simulated city such as "Sim City" pays attention to the macro layout and urban growth of the block unit.
Anno is in between: macroscopically, players build an economic system of cities to supply their wars and diplomacy. To do this well, players need to micro-handle the collection, crafting, and trade of many kinds of resources, taking care of every city dweller. At the same time, other forces manipulated by AI are constantly evolving, giving players a constant sense of urgency for external threats.
Players have to deal with the threat of war while building
When it came time to decide to develop the game, Ubisoft's Mainz team faced a daunting challenge.
The first Anno 1602 was born in 1998, and has been listed for 6 titles before, with a fairly core player community. Developing a sequel to such a niche and long-lived series can easily get caught in a dilemma. Too innovative in gameplay will make old players uncomfortable, too conservative and a little unenterprising. The difficulty is too low, the old players are boring, the difficulty is too high, and it is unable to attract new players to get started.
In fact, a series of works "Anno 2205" encountered a similar problem. The simplified production process and the drastically modified combat system have polarized the reputation of the game among players.
Many of the changes in Anno 2205 did not go unapproved by players
As a result, Anno 1800 set a goal at the beginning of its development to return to the origins of the series and create the "best Era game". But achieving this is never easy. The Ubisoft Mainz team's approach to this problem is to involve the player community in the game's development process and optimize the game experience by incorporating player suggestions.
At the CJ Developer Conference this year, the development team of the Anno series shared their experience of relying on the community to polish the game, and we also had a conversation about the game community and development experience with its game director Manuel Reinher, planner Andrea Fricke, and communications manager Bastian Thun. Here's what we talked about.
Y&D Agency: What are the challenges of developing a sequel to the Anno series?
Manuel: We wanted to be able to preserve our core gameplay so that players would know at a glance that this was an Anno game. But at the same time, it is necessary to integrate new technologies and new gameplay to enhance the experience of the game under the premise of meeting the era setting. For example, we added a lot of working-class gameplay in Anno 1800, and in the previous game, players didn't have to worry about how many people were in each class. Of course, new ways to play mean new risks, and thanks to the communication between us and the player community, players can provide feedback directly on new features, so that we can make improvements.
YZENS: How did this player feedback help you develop your game?
Bastian: The game went on sale in April 2019, but it was announced two years earlier at Game Show Cologne 2017. Over the past two years, we have regularly invited players to conduct internal tests, and on the other hand, we have gathered feedback on the community platform to understand what players think about the game's content.
Our goal was to create "the best Anno games possible," so we wanted to synthesize a game experience that interested both players and development teams. This is also why many of the classic Anno mechanisms are embodied in Anno 1800. On this basis, we introduce new mechanisms such as the management of the workers' population. New and old players are quite satisfied with our approach.
You research agency: The old players of "Anno" feel that they should be quite hardcore, how do you deal with the relationship with the player community? Will this relationship affect the development team's implementation of some of the game's visions?
Bastian: The biggest challenge is managing player expectations of the game. We've taken a very aggressive approach: we've been reporting our progress to players since the game was released in 2017. The game started A-beta early, with a lot of live events, and players get weekly updates on the game's progress.
Of course, different players will definitely have different ideas and needs about the gameplay and some details of the game, which will cause some debate and conflict.
Sometimes some players may feel that they can dominate the direction of game development. Our approach is to participate in various discussions, answer difficult questions head-on, and use various opportunities to educate players about some game development trade-offs and difficulties, so that players understand that many things are not as simple as they seem. We respect the player and have a very transparent dialogue with the player, so that the player feels that they are part of the game team, and they will reciprocate with the same respect.
Manuel: When we were developing games, we definitely wanted to attract as many players as possible. But if you try to please everyone too much, you will lose your direction and make the game unsuitable.
Youkensha: Speaking of player participation in design, the Attitude of the Anno series to player mods has always been relatively conservative, will you provide more support for mods in the future?
Manuel: Player mods can do great things and can greatly enrich the gaming experience. We do have a conservative view of player mods, but we don't have any resistance to player mods either. Providing support for mods meant that we needed to develop a mod tool that needed to be included in the project plan early in the game's development. At present, we should not be able to provide official mod support for Anno 1800. Future projects may exist, but at the moment we cannot promise anything.
You: For a game as complex as Anno 1800, how did you choose to include which 19th-century social processes were included in the game? How is the game's authenticity and gameplay balanced?
Andrea: It's a complicated one. We have to look at the industrial production situation of that year, and choose the parts that meet the needs of the game and are more realistic. Since the production of the game will become more and more complex, and resources such as coal will appear many times in the player's production chain, it is important to choose the right representative product. After that, it's balancing and testing.
Anno 1800 resource collection and production is a complex chain
Manuel: We'll take inspiration from the game's age setting and pick some of the features that feel like a "19th century" in the player, but everything ultimately serves the gameplay of the game. Some of the buildings are shaped and some of the fabrics are not particularly historical, but we've done a lot of the interior details of the buildings so that players can see how they work, enhancing their realism.
You: When designing these productions, do you prefer that players can manage the city from memory, or do you think it's okay to use some management tools?
Andrea: We've got a very rich set of resource management tools, and even added the biggest resource management interface in the series in one update to help veteran players optimize their economy. I think this is ultimately about the way players play, some players like to run efficiently, and some players are more focused on building a beautiful city. Of course, players want to use external tools such as calculators or production tables, which is also their freedom. Some players seek challenges outside the framework we provide, and it's really up to them to figure it out on their own.
Many players will use such blueprints to assist themselves in arranging the layout of the city
Research Agency: Will the Anno team consider making a high-definition remake of the classic series in the future? Would you consider mobile?
Manuel: We've just launched a collection of 4 classic Anno on upplay. Anno 1800 has attracted us to a lot of new players who haven't played the previous game in the series, but all of whom have expressed interest. However, we currently have no plans to develop a high-definition remake or a mobile version of Epoch.