Anno 1404

As with other Anno games, the player, at the will of their unnamed country of origin creates and manages their fief aside AI players. The player must colonize islands, plan settlements, set up factories and farms to meet their citizens' needs, enter diplomatic relationships with AI players, and engage in naval and ground combat with others.

One of the main focuses of the game in the "city building setting" sense centers on the construction of monuments, namely a Gothic cathedral and an Arabic mosque. The construction phases of these monuments are dependent on certain preconditions which have to be met in order to continue building. The player also needs to stockpile building material in order to commence such a project. The process of the construction of the cathedral resembles very closely the castle/palace (and Asian Dragon Temple) feature that was displayed in 1404's predecessor, Anno 1701.

Lord Richard Northburgh, the treasurer of the Occidental Empire, is concerned for the health of the Emperor, after he fell ill with a mysterious illness. Seeking to pray for his recovery, Northburgh works to build a magnificent Cathedral in the Empire's capital, and grants the player with a fiefdom to build a new settlement and support his plans. As the cathedral's construction progresses, both find themselves recruited by Cardinal Lucius, an unscrupulous religious leader, into helping with the preparations for a Crusade against the Saracens of the Orient, under the supervision of Lucius' second-in-command, Guy Forcas. During their work, Northburgh becomes suspicious about the Emperor's illness, and slowly begins to suspect there is a plot to overthrow him.

With the crusade completed, Lucius leaves it under the command of Marie d'Artois, who brings most of the assembled forces to the Orient. However, Northburgh discovers that children from a settlement she had been governing went missing in her absence, and leads the player to the Orient after discovering Forcas moving several ships out of the region. Making contact with the Grand Vizier of the Sultan, Al Zahir, the group discovers that the children were abducted by Forcas to ensure the crusade cannot be stopped. During their escape, Forcas encounters the Corsairs led by Hassan ben Sahid, who grant him safe passage in exchange for the children.

The soundtrack was produced by Dynamedion. To combine Eastern and Western sounds, exotic instruments and vocal music were utilized, with live orchestra musicians engaged instead of synthetic samples. It was recorded in collaboration with the Staatsorchester Halle and the Philharmonic Choir Leipzig.

The game has a rigorous digital rights management (DRM) system based on Tagès. It forces users to activate their game online once by submitting an activation code after each installation on a different computer or a significant hardware change. The activation can be performed on any PC with an Internet connection. It can only be activated three times by default and unlike many other DRM systems, it does not support revocation of already used licenses. Further licenses could be requested free of charge by contacting Ubisoft.

Anno 1404 received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregator website Metacritic.

IGN gave the game an 8.2, saying it was "a worthy successor to the Anno franchise". D Critic praised the game, saying that "with up-to-date graphics, a great soundtrack, and great gameplay, there's a lot to love about this game".