Ubisoft recently announced that an expansion to Anno 1404, their acclaimed real-time strategy and simulation game, will be arriving in EMEA (Europe, Middle-East and Africa) territories in February next year, and will this time take players to Venice while adding a much requested online multiplayer mode.

Marketing director of EMEA at Ubisoft, John Parkes said of the expansion: “With Anno 1404 Venice we are proud to bring a whole new dimension to gamers by letting them experience new multiplayer challenges online with their friends.

“We’re confident that this add-on will please fans of the series as well as newcomers to the franchise.”

A list of Anno 1404: Venice’s key features follows below:

• The rich Anno 1404 environment gets complemented with a new Venetian setting offering new possibilities of interaction:
  • Build two new Venetian ship types: the small and big tradesman cog
  • Develop secret cabinets, infiltrate your enemies and sabotage their expansion
  • Take control over enemy cities thanks to your influence in the cities’ council board
• Play Anno 1404 online in a multiplayer mode: -Choose to play versus or coop to defeat the AI by combining your techniques
  • Up to 8 players
• New challenges and quests:
  • Up to 60 new items and 300 new quests with two new types: trading race and ship -boarding
  • Discover and exploit a new type of island, the Volcano island
  • New scenarios to face new challenges with new achievements, medals and crests

El33tonline rather enjoyed the original Anno 1404, so you should definitely keep your eye on the expansion.