Ubisoft have launched a week-long demo for Anno 1800, the latest in their city ‘n’ empire-building game. You’ve got until Monday to play a Victorian coloniser, wearing silly hats and ruthlessly exploiting resources and people for capital gain. And in the game. It is weird for a demo to be limited in both quantity and time, given how many week-long full-game trials we see these days, but Anno 1800 is a worth a look.

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“Rumors spread among your crew about a hermit living on an isle of wonders, a shabby-looking scavenger and inventor who prefers the company of his own automatons,” Ubisoft say to introduce the new Anno 1800 mini-expansion. “But don’t let the cock-and-bull stories of your crew fool you; Old Nate may just be a genius a genius who is willing to share his ground-breaking inventions with all comers, so long as the price is right…”

And yeah yeah the DLC sounds neat with sunken treasure to dive for and all that, but first I must know: is this our Nate, our shabby-looking eccentric who keeps pet crabs and speaks cryptically about experiencing an “old-timey diving suit mishap”?

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After playing through Anno 1800 s early game a few times (I m one of those ghastly bastards who tends to compulsively restart if things aren t going exactly my way), I started writing a very different article to the one you are now reading. The issue was, I hadn t realised I was playing the early> game at all. I had the feeling I d seen the lion s share of what there was to see, and was ready to pack up and write something along the lines of great fun, but I m not sure about replayability . Then I played some more. And some more. And around six hours later, like someone who s seen a handful of wasps in their house and so decides to go up into the attic to try to find out why, I was forced to drastically re-evaluate my position. Folks, Anno 1800 is a lot.

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