If you want better gameplay mechanics
Choose Tales of Xillia Remastered. It scores 5.0 vs 4.6 for gameplay mechanics, with a 3.9 overall score.
Anno 117: Pax Romana Review
Bottom Line
Choose it for deep city-building, gorgeous Roman atmosphere, and sandbox replayability. Skip it if you want effortless onboarding, highly tactical combat, or a consistently polished campaign.
Best for
City-builder and strategy fans who enjoy production chains, trade, long-form optimization, and sandbox experimentation. Patient newcomers can also get a lot from the campaign's guided introduction.
Not for
Players seeking a lightweight management game, highly tactical RTS combat, or consistently frictionless menus and tutorials may find the experience demanding.
Verdict
Anno 117: Pax Romana succeeds most when city-building, trade, production chains, and regional identity reinforce one another. Reviewers repeatedly praise its gorgeous presentation, living cities, strong soundtrack, flexible sandbox, and the satisfaction of turning fragile settlements into efficient provinces. The Roman-Celtic split and research choices give repeat play real variety, while co-op and cross-play broaden the long-term appeal. The tradeoff is uneven accessibility in practice: tutorials and UI can leave newcomers hunting for answers, combat remains lighter than dedicated RTS games, and several sources report bugs, stutters, save, or multiplayer issues. The campaign is more engaging than expected but often criticized for slow pacing and an abrupt or unfinished-feeling conclusion. It is a strong city-builder whose systems and atmosphere outweigh its rough edges.
Feature Scorecards
Summary
77 reviewed features-
Very positive 4.5-5.024 (31%)
-
Positive 3.5-4.432 (42%)
-
Neutral 2.5-3.411 (14%)
-
Negative 1.5-2.410 (13%)
Pros
-
Visuals are one of the clearest strengths, with gorgeous cities, excellent lighting, detailed buildings, and impressive scale across both regions.
-
The layered mix of city-building, logistics, trade, research, diplomacy, religion, and warfare gives the game substantial mechanical depth without abandoning accessibility.
-
City-building is the product’s strongest pillar, combining intuitive placement tools, production puzzles, regional constraints, and satisfying visual growth.
-
Building supply chains, balancing citizens, trading across islands, and constantly refining layouts creates an engrossing loop that repeatedly makes hours disappear.
-
The game is consistently described as addictive, engrossing, and hard to put down, even by players who also find parts of it frustrating.
-
Trade, production chains, workforce management, and inter-island logistics are among the game’s strongest systems, rewarding planning while still allowing cascading failures when one link breaks.
Cons
-
Facial presentation is a notable blemish, with lip-sync and talking-head animation sometimes looking stiff, dubbed, or poorly timed.
-
Campaign pacing is a recurring weakness, with slow stretches, abrupt transitions, and a conclusion that can arrive before the story fully lands.
-
Tutorial quality is inconsistent: some players found the campaign helpful, while others complained about skipped steps, missing explanations, and insufficient recovery guidance.
-
Steam Deck-style play has meaningful compromises, including controller issues under Linux/Proton and performance drops in larger cities.
-
Online matchmaking is a clear limitation: players are restricted to people already on their friends list rather than being able to find public matches.
-
Losing Ubisoft server access could temporarily remove baseline gameplay content, making connection reliability a meaningful concern.
Compared With Category Average
Compared with other Video Games, this product is above average in pause functionality, economy and resource balance, map and navigation design, near average in graphics quality, narrative quality, below average in handheld play suitability, facial animations, matchmaking quality.
Comparison summary
77 compared features-
Above average 0.4+ pts higher33 (43%)
-
Same as average within 0.3 pts30 (39%)
-
Below average 0.4+ pts lower14 (18%)
Largest category differences
| Attribute | This product | Category average | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| pause functionality | 5.0 | 2.3 | +2.7 |
| handheld play suitability | 1.5 | 3.9 | -2.4 |
| economy and resource balance | 4.3 | 3.1 | +1.2 |
| map and navigation design | 4.8 | 3.3 | +1.5 |
| facial animations | 2.2 | 3.7 | -1.5 |
| endgame content | 5.0 | 3.5 | +1.5 |
| platform-specific feature support | 5.0 | 3.5 | +1.5 |
| matchmaking quality | 1.5 | 2.9 | -1.4 |
Consider This Instead
If you want better fun factor
Choose Forza Horizon 5. It scores 5.0 vs 4.3 for fun factor, with a 4.3 overall score.
If you want better handheld play suitability
Choose Valheim. It scores 5.0 vs 1.5 for handheld play suitability, with a 4.5 overall score.
If you want better facial animations
Choose Super Mario Bros. Wonder: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park. It scores 4.8 vs 2.2 for facial animations, with a 3.9 overall score.
Compared in Reviews
Products reviewers directly compared with this model, grouped into quick takeaways.
Anno 1800
- Similar: overall experience The reviewer recommends it to Anno 1800 fans seeking a similar experience in a different era.
Cities: Skylines
- Better: building tool flexibility Its building tools are described as less flexible than those in Cities: Skylines.
Cities: Skylines 2
- Worse: polish The reviewer considers Anno 117 more polished than Cities: Skylines 2.
FAQ
Is Anno 117: Pax Romana friendly to newcomers?
More than several earlier Anno entries, according to many reviewers, but not effortlessly so. The campaign helps, while the dense UI and stacked systems can still create a steep learning curve.
Is the campaign worth playing?
Generally yes as an introduction to the systems and setting. Reviewers often enjoy its political flavor and characters, but several criticize slow pacing, shortness, or an abrupt ending.
How good is the combat?
Combat adds useful tension and is easy to understand, with naval warfare receiving stronger praise than land battles. It is intentionally lighter and less tactical than a dedicated RTS.
Does it have strong replay value?
Yes for most reviewers. Latium and Albion, research choices, sandbox settings, cultural paths, and different city layouts provide many reasons to start fresh.
How are the console controls?
They are fully workable and sometimes praised, especially with radial menus, but several reviewers still prefer mouse and keyboard because dense menus can feel slower or easier to misclick with a controller.
How stable is the game?
Experiences vary. Many reviewers report smooth performance and few problems, while others encountered stutters, bugs, crashes, save-sync trouble, or online issues.
Sample Expert Reviews We Analyzed
These are a few of the reviews included in our analysis.
Video Reviews
YouTube - Jeff Bowles Central
- Review score
- 4.0
YouTube - Cockney Gamer
- Review score
- 4.0
Article Reviews
tabletopbattles.com
Today Marchettus dives in and tackles Anno 117, as the new entry in the longrunning citybuilding game heads back to the Roman Empire!
- Review score
- 4.4
news.ubisoft.com
The first reviews for Anno 117 are here, and they praise its visual excellence and immersive setting, strategic depth with accessible...
- Review score
- 4.8
blueandqueenie.com
Game Reviews Anno 117: Pax Romana Review 15th November 2025
- Review score
- 4.2
playday.one
Anno 117: Pax Romana's finaly year 1 expansion, Dawn of the Delta, is coming out in November. We have some more information about this Egypt...
- Review score
- 4.3
back2gaming.com
Anno 117: Pax Romana is an addicting city builder where you have to juggle everything from finances, happiness, fire and safety hazards, and...
- Review score
- 3.6
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