14 DAY TRIAL // As I zone an entire neighborhood for upgrades, bringing in a whole new category of citizens, I wonder where I will find the space for the next one. My various islands deliver plenty of raw resources, the industry is thriving, and commerce is solid. But I am running out of empty land.
This means it’s time to take some money out of my thriving treasury to entirely rebuild at least one of the islands. Less coffee and cotton production, more space to create production chains for footballs and set up electricity. Fewer mines, and more beautiful and packed residences.
New World Rising is a downloadable content pack for Anno 1800, the city builder from Ubisoft. This is the third and final DLC drop of season four. I played it on the PC using the Ubisoft Connect launcher. The new content enhances the core mechanics, with new buildings and monuments to work on.
Artistas and their lodgings are the big addition of the DLC, ready to show up as long as players have successful cities and can sustain 1,000 Obreros, and can provide all the goods they need, including imported sewing machines. The new social class is pretty demanding when it comes to goods.
This means players will have to set up a range of new production chains, including one for electricity. The Artists will eventually demand access to electric scooters, which is pretty wild for a game that started out depicting the XIX century in a fairly realistic manner.
Artistas will also get players working on a football production system, as well as mezcal and calamari-based delicacies. As their numbers increase they want to be in range of a beach house, wear perfume, and use fans and ice cream to cool off.
Players can also add cinemas and samba schools to their thriving islands. Once a threshold of the new class is reached, players also get the option to improve their police and fire stations as well as their hospitals to keep up with the higher population. Upgraded buildings will require goods like fire extinguishers, medicine, and police equipment. The DLC’s monument is the Grand Stadium, capable of staging world championships.
To accommodate all of this, New World Rising adds Manola, a big new island, as well as a number of smaller landmasses. Still, it is very important to create compact, efficient cities to have enough space for all the resource production and associated factories.
For a more focused experience, Anno 1800 adds a new scenario, called Pride and Peddlers. As Madame Kahina, the goal is to set up a thriving trading empire, amassing money by exploiting the market.
Anno 1800 continues to be an exquisite-looking game, giving players plenty of aesthetic reasons to put together the best possible cities. One can zoom to street level and see the activity of residents or zoom out to get a clear idea of how entire production chains are delivering. The soundtrack is one of the best in the genre.
Conclusion
The added complexity can be a lot for those who have not played the game for a year or more. They should start with early content, playing the first season of DLC to see whether the expanded mechanics appeal to them. At the end of its fourth season, Anno 1800 remains a gorgeous experience with solid ideas and a lot of biomes to work in.
A review code was provided by the publisher.
