Anno sails into the future

I was introduced to the Anno series just after the release of Anno 1404 in 2009. At the time, my humble PC had no chance of running such a beautiful game, so I had to make do with the family friendly Wii and DS titles to tide me over. Good efforts, but no match for the majestic PC version.

But on the day I got my new PC last year, the first game I installed was Anno 1404 and its expansion Anno 1404: Venice.

Anno is a city building game, which focuses on exploration and trade. Starting out with nothing more than a small wooded settlement, the player gathers natural resources, expands their territory, manufactures essential buildings and sails across glistening oceans to trade goods at bustling city ports.

The slow-paced campaign mode introduces the player to a variety of quests and activities, training them up until they are ready to strike out on their own in the title's epic Continuous Game mode.

In light of this, you can imagine how happy I was to see the first screenshots of Ubisoft's upcoming game Anno 2070.

Steaming ahead into the future is a brave move from the series but as you can see, it looks to have paid off, with an intriguing mix of industrial and ecological issues pervading the new setting.

No date has been set for Anno 2070's release but expect more details to emerge at Gamescom in Cologne, which runs from August 17-21.