Anno 1800 is the fastest selling game in the 20-year-old series

Anno 1800 has become the city-building series' fastest-selling game, Ubisoft has announced. In its first week, it's sold more than four times the number of copies than its predecessor, Anno 2205. It's also quite a bit better.

Ubisoft hasn't shared player numbers, but we do know that they've brought almost seven billion citizens to their islands. In 1800, the world's actual population has been estimated to be fewer than a billion, rising past it by 1900. It's certainly a lot fewer settlers than are living on Anno's islands. We're changing history, people. 

Players have also constructed more than 10 million ships and a billion grain fields, while they've settled more than three million islands.  

Here's what Rick Lane had to say in his Anno 1800 review: 

Anno 1800 is a rich and sumptuous city-builder, easily the grandest and deepest Anno to date. Its early game is a wonderfully relaxing experience, while the later stages will have you scratching your mutton-chops and happily stretching your braces in equal measure. 

I'm still playing through the campaign myself, and I expect it has many more hours of expansion and management to offer me before I'm done. Sometimes I fire it up just to watch my little settlements working away like gorgeous clockwork machines, churning out food and glass and metal to power and fund my burgeoning business empire. I'd probably be further along if I wasn't busy taking pretty screenshots.