The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2024
Anno 117 answers fans' 15-year Roman request through a town crier who joins the game
With no gameplay footage to show, Anno 117 dug up fan comments as old as 2019 and answered them in character as a Roman town crier.
Anno (Ubisoft)
What it had to solve
For over 15 years, fans of the Anno series had been asking for a game set in the Roman Empire. Anno 117: Pax Romana was finally on the horizon, but with no gameplay footage available the launch team had nothing concrete to show — only the community's long-held wish.
How it works
For over 15 years, fans of the Anno series had been asking for a game set in the Roman Empire. When Anno 117: Pax Romana was finally on the horizon, the team hit a familiar launch problem — no gameplay footage was available yet, so a conventional reveal would have had little new to show.
The answer was to make the community the show. The team unearthed fan comments from across the internet, some dating back to 2019, and responded in the most Roman way possible: through a town crier. The character personally addressed fans in bespoke video messages, rewarding the people who had spent years predicting and requesting the Roman setting.
The town crier became a community sensation. He starred in the game's trailers, and ultimately earned a place in the game itself — so the fans' years of asking for Rome became part of Anno 117's own story. The work is archived in the D&AD awards archive.
Why it lands
- There was no gameplay to show, so the campaign made the community's long wait the message instead of a gap to hide.
- Responding in character let the brand meet fans where they were: a Roman town crier answering comments felt like the game already existed.
- Bespoke replies rewarded individual fans, turning a broadcast announcement into many personal moments people wanted to share.
- The character's path from video messages to trailers to the game itself meant the idea kept paying off long after the reveal.
What it did
The town crier became a community sensation, starred in the game's trailers and ultimately earned a place in the game itself — turning 15 years of waiting into a character the fans now recognize as part of Anno 117.
What you can take
When a product announcement has nothing to show, the audience's own history is the content: answer years of requests in character, and the waiting itself becomes the campaign.
Since then
The town crier carried Anno 117's launch: after answering fans' comments, the character moved into the game's trailers and ultimately into the game itself. What began as a way to fill the time before gameplay footage existed became part of Anno 117's own mythology, and the campaign is archived in the D&AD awards archive.
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