Ahead of its November 13 release date, we got to play a preview build of Anno 117: Pax Romana that allowed us to get up close and personal with the campaign and test a few games out from the sandbox. For a newcomer to the series, the game was surprisingly engaging and deep but could also do better with onboarding new players.

Anno 117: Pax Romana Hands-on preview

As someone who has never played a game in this series before, it delighted me to know that there is a story campaign in the game. I’m a single-player campaign enjoyer myself, whether it is NBA MyCareer or Call of Duty, so I immediately jumped in. Anno 117: Pax Romana lets players choose between Marcus and Marcia, two vastly different characters who take their appointment as Roman governor and sets out to grow the city. Both have different storylines, and instead of just blindly playing and growing your city, I liked that there was a narrative to follow to guide me through the proceedings.

One particular feature I liked was that the story was engaging, giving players choices along the way instead of leaving players to their own devices. There are repercussions to the decisions made, but it remains to be seen just how deep choices will affect what happens in future chapters. Still, it’s great that players are not left simply to build their city, involving them in how the proceedings shape out.

As mentioned, I have not been exposed to first-hand gameplay of the Anno series, so I was expecting a robust onboarding experience, and while it was decent, there were times when I found myself just staring at my screen waiting for something to happen. I liked how the tutorial is based on a storyline, as this makes the process more engaging, but there are some parts of the tutorial that I feel was missing to proceed further.

One part of my Anno 117: Pax Romana playthrough had me create houses for the townsfolk, and as I did so, there was a system here that needed me to connect them to the town hall with roads, which suggested that I can’t just place my structures anywhere, and I have to properly plan where to place them for maximum effectiveness. This extended to other structures as well, as some woodcutters would need to be connected to a sawmill to produce lumber, but the sawmill also has to be connected to the town hall.

Some structures in Anno 117: Pax Romana will flash icons to denote that something is “missing” or something needs to be done to make them work properly. In this case, prior to me connecting them with roads, I was instructed to do so, which I never would have guessed. Other times, some structures do not really explain too clearly what needs to be done, showing me notices of it needing to be placed closer to a warehouse but when I relocate the structure literally beside the warehouse, the notice would still be there.

Despite that, the user interface in Anno 117: Pax Romana felt intuitive to a certain degree. After a few minutes with the game, I knew where to click to build new houses or structures, while building there is an overlay that would signal benefits of building in that space, and other information. It was helpful to a newcomer but still doesn’t quite make up for the shortcomings of the tutorial.

While the tutorial system worked for the most part, I would have appreciated it more if it was better laid out to explain the details to me, which is quite ironic because there’s even a setting in the options menu to allow for a full tutorial, but it wasn’t what I got. At various points, I didn’t know what to do to advance the game, even with the many windows and popups. Despite that, it took me a bit to figure things out, but not without a lot of trial and error along with some time lost, especially since the game also takes supply chains into consideration.

One thing Anno 117: Pax Romana does well is to simplify some aspects of building for players. When creating a field for harvesting, it allowed me to simply drag the mouse and fill an area right away instead of making me choose per tile. That said, the game does require more planning than usual, as certain structures need to be interconnected with roads and routes. This might feel like an overcomplication for new players, but I appreciated the depth required to make a city fully operational. Players can even click directly on the quest windows to show them exactly where to go.

Even with some hiccups on the onboarding experience, Anno 117: Pax Romana tries its best to keep accessibility in mind with the many tooltips, tutorials, and even allowing for UI customization to keep your most used buttons and UI elements handy. As the game focuses on the city-building aspect more than anything else, one appreciated feature of the game is allowing players to build structures diagonally, which is great for really reinforcing a certain look and feel to your city, along with utilizing space to its fullest. Whether symmetry is something you value or not, it’s a great option to have, especially for those who value aesthetic above anything else.

Further down the playthrough, there will be more intricate systems to explore, such as Religion, Military, and research trees. Religion, for example, allows players to build a temple where certain gods will provide bonuses depending on who you choose, (agriculture, naval, etc).

Anno 117: Pax Romana looks fantastic, and playing with an RTX 4070 Super, the game defaulted to high graphics settings while maintaining frame rates anywhere from 60-90fps. It played and performed well enough, even with the size of the map at hand. As the city gets bigger, streets bustle with animated citizens, and production sites feel lived-in. The camera and zoom levels allow satisfying pan-outs to give you a view of your sprawling network of roads, paired with immersive audio that provide ambient city sounds and constant feedback.

One other part of the Anno 117: Pax Romana preview build was the sandbox mode, allowing players to try out various systems at their own pace. This is basically a custom game, where players can try out various options, placements, paths, and even sprinkle in modifiers and challenges to deal with that will test out their city-building wits.

Overall, Anno 117: Pax Romana is something to look forward to for those who are inclined to this type of game. Newcomers like me can test out the waters, but the tutorial not being able to hold my hand during the opening sections means that those trying out the game may feel intimidated at its depth. City-building enthusiasts will marvel at the amount of detail presented, especially the addition of being able to build diagonally, and much more that shows the breadth of ambition that the devs are going for.

Anno 117: Pax Romana is scheduled to launch on November 13, 2025, for PS5, Xbox Series, and PC.