Anno 1800 Console Edition Review (PS5) | Push Square

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Anno 1800 Console Edition sees the advent of 2019's excellent PC colony builder on PS5, and we were pleased to find the transition has been an incredibly smooth one. What was once the province of mouse and keyboard finds an incredibly comfortable fit on console, enhanced with all the DualSense bells and whistles.

If you didn't know, Anno 1800 is a strategy management sim set during the Industrial Revolution, and you play as an entrepreneur striving to build a thriving mercantile empire. On an outpost in a remote archipelago, you must harvest raw materials and manufacture consumer goods, ensuring your people have constant access to all the luxuries of modern life. Your rough-and-ready townsfolk will eventually evolve into a needy bourgeoisie middle class and even an aristocratic element, provided you deem the benefits outweigh the negatives.

As each new social class is unlocked, so too are new buildings, allowing you to expand your operations and bringing you into contact with the world at large. Others will occupy nearby islands; either the AI with its own distinct personality and playstyle (à la the Civilisation series) or with up to 16(!) human players, depending on which you prefer.

This Console Edition is the same fantastic game and comes packaged with all the free updates the PC version received in the intervening years. In all, it's a highly replayable and somewhat arcade (at least in comparison to something like the recent and more meticulous Transport Fever 2) strategy experience, which is something of a rarity on both PS5 and PS4.

There is an expansive and entirely voice-acted single-player story campaign, which will teach you the ropes and pleasingly spices things up with a Dickensian tale of family intrigue.