Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Anno 1701: The Sunken Dragon builds on the solid city-building foundations of the original 1701 A.D., adding an eleven-mission campaign that brings structure and direction to the sandbox experience. Rather than simply titling your own rules, you follow a tightly woven sequence of objectives that pit you against varied challenges. The campaign’s pacing walks you step-by-step through resource management, trade negotiations and military skirmishes, ensuring each mission feels purposeful and engaging.

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One of the standout gameplay twists comes in the form of specialized missions. You’ll not only build sprawling colonial ports and trade routes but also perform out-of-the-ordinary tasks like commanding a squad of firemen to combat city-wide blazes set by a rival or escorting fragile trader ships through pirate-infested waters. These scenarios break up the city-builder routine with focused, tactical moments that test your adaptability.

Beyond the main story, The Sunken Dragon introduces new mechanics at higher civilization levels. Decorative objects such as bird baths and ornate fountains become available once you reach the “Aristocrat” tier, allowing for deeper customization of your city’s aesthetic. On the flip side, the meteor catastrophe adds an unpredictable hazard—small flaming stones herald a devastating impact that can reshape your carefully planned layouts in the blink of an eye.

The level editor rounds off the gameplay package by empowering creative players to design their own maps and challenges. Whether you want to recreate a map from the campaign or invent a fresh archipelago, you can save and share your creations with friends—even those who don’t own the expansion, provided you stick to base-game elements. This tool extends replayability infinitely, turning The Sunken Dragon into both a robust campaign and a platform for community-driven content.

Graphics

The Sunken Dragon preserves the bright, painterly art style of 1701 A.D. while introducing subtle enhancements that bring the Far Eastern archipelagos to life. Lush bamboo groves, terraced rice paddies and ornate pagodas lend exotic flair to every island, and the warm color palette evokes the region’s tropical ambiance. The detail in each building, from the wood-planked docks to the thatched roofs of fishermen’s huts, remains impressively crisp even at high zoom levels.

Environmental effects receive a notable upgrade with the add-on. Fire and smoke animations during the firefighting missions look especially convincing, with embers drifting through the air and flames licking the sides of wooden structures. The newcomer meteor event also dazzles: raining fireballs streak across the sky before impact, leaving charred craters and sending shockwaves through the water surrounding your city.

Water rendering continues to be one of the game’s strongest visual assets. Gentle waves lap against shores, sailboats cast realistic hull shadows, and light refracts off the ocean surface with cinematic fidelity. Reflections of nearby islands dance on the water, lending a level of immersion that underscores the maritime core of Anno’s design.

Performance is generally stable, even with dozens of buildings and thousands of inhabitants on screen. Occasional stutters can occur during large-scale meteor strikes or in very late-game scenarios, but these are rare and don’t detract from the overall visual splendor. Whether playing on a mid-range PC or a higher-end rig, players can expect a polished, colorful world that makes every session a feast for the eyes.

Story

The Sunken Dragon’s narrative revolves around a quest to retrieve a mystical artifact known as the “Eye of the Dragon.” You partner with Finn Hallqvist, an intrepid adventurer whose good intentions clash with the machinations of more sinister figures. As Finn’s ally, you navigate treacherous seas and negotiate alliances in a desperate race to prevent the artifact from falling into the wrong hands.

The campaign introduces four new AI personalities, each with distinct motivations and playstyles. Finn Hallqvist embodies the adventurous spirit, while Grace Bonnet straddles the line between adventurer and rogue, offering both camaraderie and competition. Diego del Torro serves as the archvillain, famously setting parts of your port ablaze, and Horatio fills the role of shrewd trader. Their interactions create a dynamic web of diplomacy, trade wars and open conflict that keeps the narrative fresh.

Mission variety is key to the expansion’s storytelling. In one level, you race against time to extinguish building fires rather than produce goods and ships. In another, you must defend a merchant convoy from pirates, shifting the focus from resource management to tactical defense. These narrative–mechanics pairings reinforce the unfolding drama, making each chapter feel like a distinct episode in a larger saga.

The Asian-inspired setting enhances the mythic quality of the story. Scattered shrines, dragon statues and mist-shrouded mountains imbue the map with an aura of ancient mystery. As you delve deeper into the Eye of the Dragon’s lore, the backdrop transforms from a simple trading frontier into a realm rich with folklore, hidden temples and untold secrets waiting to be uncovered.

Overall Experience

Anno 1701: The Sunken Dragon is a welcome expansion that both series veterans and newcomers can appreciate. The structured campaign offers a guided tour of Anno’s core mechanics while introducing enough novelty to keep long-time players engaged. The mission design cleverly alternates between macro-scale city management and focused, scenario-driven tasks, preventing the gameplay loop from becoming stale.

Graphically, the add-on maintains the original’s picturesque charm while injecting new environmental effects that heighten immersion. The meteor catastrophe and dynamic fire animations, in particular, add a layer of spectacle that elevates key moments in the campaign. Performance remains solid, with only occasional slowdowns in the most chaotic late-game situations.

The new characters and narrative arcs breathe life into the trading-empire genre, offering memorable personalities to ally with—or oppose—throughout your journey. The blend of diplomacy, trade and military tactics ensures that players must adapt their strategies mission by mission, and the Asian-themed setting provides a refreshing visual and thematic shift from the Western colonial backdrop of the base game.

Finally, the level editor cements The Sunken Dragon as a long-term investment. By enabling players to craft and share their own maps without requiring friends to own the expansion, Ubisoft ensures that creativity and replayability extend far beyond the official content. All told, this add-on enriches the Anno formula with narrative depth, fresh challenges and robust tools for community engagement, making it a must-have for fans of strategic city-builders.

Retro Replay Score

8.1/10