Anno 2205: To The Moon.

Most single player games are played either for relaxation, escapism or a combination of both. However there are some that feel more like running a marathon, igniting your mental faculties in such a way as to leave you exhausted by the end of it. StarCraft and other RTS are like this, requiring concentration far beyond that of any other genre I’ve played. Anno 2205 requires a similar level of concentration however, instead of RAW APM and macro, it instead requires you to constantly recalculate the finite balance of the numerous resources you have to manage. One wrong move can send you on a downward spiral that can be hard to pull out of, or send you on your trajectory to corporate supremacy.

Anno 2205 predictably takes place in the future, some 135 years after the previous instalment in the series. In this future the Earth has become starved for energy and other precious resources and thus has turned towards the Moon in order to save it. You are the head of a fledgling new corporation who has been accepted into the Lunar Licensing program which aims to free Earth from its current energy bonds. Your goal is to establish a fusion reactor on the moon and transmit that energy back to Earth, no small goal for a company that just established its first warehouse. Along the way you’ll have to establish global trade routes, fight off those who would thwart you and ensure that your company remains financially viable so you can continue expanding your empire.

The graphics of Anno 2205 are a marked step up from its predecessor with a whole new engine powering a complete overhaul of the graphics and UI. Gone is the semi-dreamlike aesthetic which has been replaced by a crisp, detailed world. The typical Anno stylings are still present however so if you’ve played any of the preceding titles it will still feel familiar. These upgraded visuals do come at a cost however as even my machine would start to sputter and spurt whenever I hovered over a particularly dense part of the world. Still it rarely became unplayable but for those who might be on lower end hardware long games are certainly going to be a struggle.

Anno 2205 retains the same RTS/city building hybrid game play that its predecessors had however many changes have been made in the name of streamlining the experience. Instead of managing trade routes within a single map everything is shared instantly. You still have trade routes to manage however they’re at a more macro level between areas. Anno 2205 also guides you through the various trials and tribulations that it will throw at you, telling you what critical shortages are impacting you and when you should investigate something. There’s also some new mechanics included to make sure that you don’t find yourself in an unrecoverable situation, however it’s still up to you to get yourself out of it. The combat has also been relegated to its own separate encounter, meaning you don’t have to manage your military and trade all in the one spot. Other than that however Anno 2205 plays out much like its predecessors did, requiring you to make sure you have enough of everything so your employees stay happy so you can remain profitable.

Like most similar games Anno 2205 feels extremely overwhelming on first play as there is just so much you need to learn and understand. Thankfully though the tutorial is great at stepping you through the various goals you need to meet in order to reach the next objective. You are, of course, free to ignore that completely and pursue your own objectives independently however Anno’s rather linear progression means that you’d be wise to follow its instruction. After a while you start to get a feel for the impact that your actions have on your world and that allows you to start building out a plan of attack for progression towards the next goal.

For instance your advanced resource colonies (Arctic and Lunar) are almost always going to be loss-leaders. I tried extremely hard to make them profitable however they just never seemed to get into positive territory. The main tropical ones however can have you rolling in cash in no short order, meaning you should focus on building them out as much as you can whilst only building the minimal components in the others in order to support them. Then, once your cash reserves are high enough, you can look towards building them out a bit more in order to support the next goal or tech tier which will then allow your main colony to thrive further. Attempting anything else seemed to lead to me running into negative cashflow territory quickly, something which torpedoes any kind of growth you were experiencing.

Thankfully when that happens the game, at least on its default settings, is generous with the bailouts it gives and the conditions that are imposed on you when they’re given. This means that, should you find yourself in a dire situation, you’ll get lump sumps of cash from the Lunar Licensing program in order to continue your work. Gone are the days when a downward spiral in Anno meant you’d be restarting your game, something I was thankful for given I flirted with bankruptcy more than once. Past a certain point though credits no longer matter and it all comes down to the resources you can generate.

In the beginning this all comes from simply building as many things as you can, however that will quickly have you running out of credits and space. After that point you’ll need to engage in combat missions in order to get upgrade materials to make your resource generation more efficient. These missions are essentially micro exercises, pitting your combat fleet against a torrent of enemies and objectives. They’re not especially difficult although they do have a gear check requirement for the higher levels which can’t really be overcome with skill alone. Still whenever I found myself wanting for resources it didn’t take long to get them, something I was thankful for given the rather huge time sink requirement games like Anno have. Removing this aspect from the core game is a welcome change too as it always felt far too fiddly having to manage all those aspects together all in the same map in previous instalments.

Indeed whilst many Anno purists where crying foul over the streamlining I feel like it was the best thing about 2205. 2070 always had far too much going on with so many variables to track in order to make sure that everything was working as intended. 2205 by contrast keeps you informed of what’s going on without being too heavy on the information side and shows you exactly where the deficiencies are coming from so you can address them directly. Sure it might be a simpler game, one that’s not so mechanically complex, but there is such a thing as too much complexity and that’s definitely how I felt with 2070.

Anno 2205 is a great evolution of the series, bringing with it streamlined gameplay and updated visuals that really ramps up the Anno experience. The core game remains largely the same, with the resource balancing act still being the key to everything, however it’s a lot less mentally exhausting. The various other aspects have been carved up into their own little sections, further reducing the mental burden. You’ll still be saddling up for quite some time however as reaching the ultimate goal took even this seasoned gamer numerous hours to complete. For fans of the series or just this type of game in general Anno 2205 is a great title, one that’s sure to provide countless hours of addiction…I mean entertainment.

Rating: 8/10

Anno 2205 is available on PC right now for $59.99. Total play time was approximately 9 hours.