Anno 117: Pax Romana

The most useful review of Anno 117 is the one with 2,060 helpful votes and 123 hours played, which opens like this: "The game is beautiful, fun, engaging and good all around. The scenario is *chef's kiss." And then explains, at length, why it's a thumbs down anyway.

That is this game in miniature. Almost nobody thinks Anno 117 is a bad city builder. What they object to is what surrounds it — and unusually, every single one of those objections can be verified from Ubisoft's own store page rather than taken on a reviewer's word.

What's on the page

Three things are declared right there, under the buy button.

An AI content disclosure, in Ubisoft's words: "AI tools were used to help create some in game assets. In all such cases, the final product reflects our team's craft and creative vision."

Denuvo Anti-tamper, and a required Ubisoft account on top of your Steam purchase.

And a DLC list: a Year 1 Pass at NZ$57.95, a Prophecies of Ash expansion at NZ$19.95, and cosmetic packs at NZ$11.65 each — sitting beside a base game that costs NZ$99.95 and has never been discounted.

Now the reviews. The two most-upvoted negatives in the game's history, at 2,140 and 1,437 votes, are both about the AI art. "The Anno games have always had such inspiring splash art that really set a great tone for the setting," one writes. "Seeing low effort slop used in its place was disappointing." A third reviewer, returning four months later, notes Ubisoft's disclaimer and reports the character textures still show visible seams.

I'd separate the two arguments here. Whether a publisher should use these tools is a values question readers will settle for themselves. Whether the result looks worse than what the series was known for is a craft question, and a large number of long-time Anno players have answered it consistently. The splash art is the part of an Anno game people put on their walls, and that's where they say the drop shows.

The Year 1 Pass problem

This is the one that would bother me most as a buyer, and it's specific enough to state plainly.

Ubisoft sold a Year 1 Pass at launch. Then, inside that first year, released DLC that isn't in it. A reviewer with 316 hours — someone who plainly likes the game — lays it out: the first post-launch content was "cosmetics that frankly should have been in the base game, for $7.00, naturally not included in the year one pass." Another, at 1,236 votes: "Releasing this game with a 'Year 1' pass, then releasing 2 DLC within the first year that do not come in the Year 1 pass is incredibly scummy."

A season pass exists to answer one question — what will this cost me over the next year — and a pass that doesn't cover the year fails at the only job it has. DLC appears in 36 of the hundred most-helpful English negatives; the pass specifically in 21.

There's a related account horror story worth flagging, from a player with 436 hours: they report the game was registered to a Ubisoft Connect account they hadn't accessed in five years, without being asked, and that support declined to fix it, leaving the game unplayable. That's one person's account of one support case, but it's the risk you accept when a Steam purchase is bound to a second publisher account, and it's the most-upvoted version of a complaint that recurs.

Is it a good Anno?

Mostly, and with an asterisk that series veterans keep applying: it isn't Anno 1800.

The 1800 comparison appears in 33 of the hundred negatives, and the recent ones are blunter than the launch ones — "like Anno 1800 but way worse, more repetitive and completely devoid of soul," "a huge step back," "it doesn't have much mojo." A player with 84 hours who calls Anno 2070 and 1800 masterpieces describes 117 as a different story.

The fair rebuttal is the one that 2,060-vote reviewer gives: the trading, the specialists, the industry planning and the city layout puzzle are "as fun as always in the series, but nothing brand new." That's a real defence and also a real limitation. Anno 1800 arrived in 2019 and has had six years of expansions; a new entry inevitably launches thinner. The question is whether you want to pay NZ$99.95 to start that cycle again.

Two smaller notes. The interface draws criticism in 31 of the negatives. And there's a genuinely absurd one, with 1,617 votes from a 252-hour player: the profanity filter blocks historical Roman names — Sextus, Titus, Adrianus, Noricum — while the game's own name generator offers suggestions like "Biggus Discus." It's funny, and it's the kind of detail that tells you which parts of a production got attention.

They are working on it

Credit where it's due. Ubisoft Mainz have patched steadily — 1.5 in April 2026, hotfixes through May, 1.5.1 and 1.5.2, 1.6 in June, 1.6.1 in July, with developer blogs explaining what's coming and a substantial Update 2.0 landing alongside the Hippodrome DLC in August 2026. Ship trade routes, crash fixes, quest triggers, achievement visibility — the notes read like a team working through a real list.

It has moved sentiment slightly: 68 of the last 100 English reviews are positive, against 65.8% lifetime, with a 34-hour median playtime. That's improvement, not rehabilitation, and the negatives still arrive steadily — twelve in June 2026 alone.

The verdict

Anno 117: Pax Romana earns a 6. The simulation underneath is a 7 and would climb with a couple of years of expansions, exactly as 1800 did. If you want more Anno and the money isn't a factor, you will get dozens of decent hours out of it.

The score is lower than the game because a review has to assess what's being sold, and what's being sold is a NZ$99.95 builder with a season pass that doesn't cover its own season, cosmetics billed separately on top of that, a second account and Denuvo standing between you and the thing you bought, and art assets the publisher acknowledges were made with AI tools in a series whose art was part of its appeal. Every one of those is a choice, and together they explain a Mixed rating on a competent game far better than any gameplay criticism does.

Buy Anno 1800 in a sale instead if you're new to the series, or wait two years for the complete edition of this one. If what you actually want is an economy you can lose a weekend inside, Against the Storm and Captain of Industry both ask a fraction of the price and none of the conditions.