Anno 2070

In Anno 2070, politics are no longer defined by countries, boundaries, religions, races, etc., but how humans choose to produce energy. All humankind rally under one global government where the three main factions of the game control the world's decisions. Players can also vote for a World President and vote in Senate Council. Participation will give different effects to all players, depending on who is president or what bill was passed, until the next cycle of voting begins. For example, voting for the Tycoons' CEO Skylar Banes will increase productivity of manufacturing buildings.

Players can also gain achievement and rewards from just playing the game. Players can customize their Ark to fit personal preference, which is only for aesthetics, as well as gaining special rewards that affect gameplay.

The scenario is set in the year 2070. Global warming has melted the Arctic ice cap, which has raised the global sea level so that the coasts were flooded. As a result, many old cities have vanished under the ocean, and much of what was once highland has been turned into chains of new islands. Responsibility for settling and exploiting these new frontiers is given to a select group of people, who captain mobile ocean-going bases known as Arks.

T. (referred to as the "Techs"). Ecos are environmental and build sustainable cities, but are inefficient and slow to expand. Tycoons are industrious and expand quickly, but have problems with pollution and dwindling resources.

The game was protected by Tagès SolidShield with a 3 machine activation limit and always needed to be connected to the Internet while playing the game. Changing hardware could use up one activation. After the last activation was used, 1 was regained every 30 days.

This generated wide criticism as legitimate players faced different problems with such online only systems. In 2012, Ubisoft decided to release a universal patch removing the online only DRM from several games including Anno 2070. The SolidShield DRM with its activation limit was entirely removed on July 8, 2020.

Critical reception for Anno 2070 has been positive since the game's release, with a majority of critics considering it a big step forward in the Anno series. Criticism of the game is heavily influenced by the requirement to be always online to access all game options. Without being online the player can still access an offline mode, but one can't edit their own profile information, and the player is unable to update their Ark base, place cargo into it, or upgrade it with equipment. Early reception at the time of release was also negatively influenced by constant crashes, server issues, and critics pointed out that the game worked better on pirated versions instead of the official one with Ubisoft server access.