Anno 1800: Console Edition Review: Is It Worth Playing?

Absolutely, if you enjoy deep, strategic city-builders. This is a premium, complete edition with all major DLCs, offering an immense amount of polished content. The console control scheme is a revelation, making complex management intuitive. The game's depth—from trade routes to citizen happiness—is staggering. While demanding of your time and brainpower, the satisfaction of creating a thriving industrial metropolis is unparalleled on consoles. It's a top-tier strategy port.

‘Beating’ Anno 1800 is subjective due to its sandbox nature. The main campaign takes roughly 20-30 hours. However, the true appeal is the endless ‘Sandbox’ mode, where players commonly spend 50-100 hours on a single session to build a megacity and complete all late-game goals. With multiple DLC regions (the Arctic, Enbesa, etc.) adding entirely new maps and mechanics, total playtime can easily extend into the hundreds of hours for completionists.

Yes, but with a key limitation. The game features a fully cooperative multiplayer mode where you and up to three friends can work together to build and manage a single, shared empire. You can divide tasks and resources seamlessly. However, note that there is no competitive multiplayer or PvP on the console edition—the focus is purely on collaborative building and strategy against AI opponents.

Anno 1800: Console Edition is exclusive to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. There are no announced plans for a Nintendo Switch port, as the game's scale is likely too demanding. It is also not available on any subscription service like Game Pass or PlayStation Plus as a catalog title. It is a standalone purchase, but often goes on sale, bundling the base game and all four Season Passes of content.

While both are city-builders, they focus on different aspects. Cities: Skylines is a modern traffic and infrastructure simulator. Anno 1800 is a historical production-chain and economy manager. Anno demands you balance complex resource networks (e.g., turning pigs into soap) to satisfy tiered citizen classes, with a stronger emphasis on trade, exploration, and light naval combat. It's less about urban planning and more about intricate economic puzzle-solving on a grand, empire-wide scale.