Anno 117 Turns One as Dawn of the Delta Floods Rome's Empire With the Nile
A year after launch, Ubisoft Mainz's Roman city builder has wrapped up its first season with its biggest expansion: an Egyptian province where the river gives and the river takes. What's in it, what the first year delivered, and what it costs right now.
Every city builder eventually runs into the same enemy: water. Usually it's a coastline that ruins your road grid. In Anno 117's newest expansion, it's the Nile itself, and it floods on a schedule.
Anno 117: Pax Romana launched on November 13, 2025, which makes today its first birthday. Ubisoft Mainz marked the occasion a week early: Dawn of the Delta, the third and largest gameplay DLC in the Year 1 Pass, went live on November 5, 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. It adds a whole new province, Aegyptus, and a farming system built around the river's seasons.
A province that floods on purpose
Aegyptus is a delta full of narrow waterways, and each buildable area is split into three zones. Drylands hold your cities and workshops, but need irrigation before anything grows. Farmlands form a fertile strip along the river. And the new Floodplains sit right beside the Nile, with high yields, exclusive goods such as geese, beads and reeds, mud roads only, and the constant risk of going under.
The river runs on two seasons. During Shemu, the harvest, floodplain production gets an extra ton of goods. During Akhet, the flood, floodplain output drops to 25%, every city takes a health penalty and fire safety improves. Planning around that rhythm is the whole puzzle, and players can tame it with basins and canals (the "Aegyptus Way") or giant water wheels feeding cisterns (the "Graeco-Roman Way").
Two ways to be a citizen
Dawn of the Delta's population tree splits early. Everyone starts as Threshers, then your settlement follows one of two paths: an Aegyptian line of Potters and Chanters, or a Graeco-Roman line of Scribes and Gymnasiarchs. Each group wants its own goods, from dates and stuffed goose to sistrum rattles, scribing sets and bathing milk.
Three new deities bring their own bonuses: Sobek, Isis-Bastet and Thoth Trismegistus, mostly boosting food, animals and water infrastructure. There are two river-specialised ship types, new recruitable Kumatic Archers and camel-mounted Dromedarii, and a four-stage sector project to restore the pyramids that rival governors compete over.
There's a story, too. A local celebrity named Nymphaeus turns up dead in the Nile, and you can choose to investigate. Anno campaigns have rarely leaned this far into a whodunit.
What the first year delivered
Ubisoft set out its Year 1 plan in April and mostly kept to it:
- Prophecies of Ash (April 30, 2026): new lands in Latium, a volcano, the god Vulcan and a new resource, obsidian.
- The Hippodrome (August 2026): a monument inspired by the Circus Maximus, with chariot races and new specialists.
- Dawn of the Delta (November 5, 2026): the Aegyptus province.
- Cosmetic packs outside the pass: Marvellous Mosaics (February 19), Blooming Cities (June) and the Echoes of Kassandra Pack (September 17).
The free side of the roadmap promised better diplomacy and rival behaviour, a trade-route menu overhaul, in-game notes, Hall of Fame content and, importantly for PC players, a mod browser and manager built into the game.
What it costs right now
To celebrate the launch of Dawn of the Delta, Ubisoft cut the base game, the Year 1 Pass and the first two DLCs by up to 40%. On Steam the standard edition is $35.99 instead of $59.99 until November 18, and the Gold Edition is $53.99 instead of $89.99. The sale runs until November 19 on Xbox, November 20 on PlayStation and December 1 on the Ubisoft Store. Anno 117 is also included in Ubisoft+.
Why it matters
City builders live or die on their second act. Some launch strong and fade; the good ones keep giving players new problems to solve. Anno 117's first year has followed that second pattern, with each expansion adding a mechanic rather than just a map: a volcano that erupts, a racetrack that changes your economy, and now a river that floods. If you've been waiting for a complete-feeling version before jumping in, this sale and this DLC are a sensible moment. For the long history of the genre, from SimCity to Cities: Skylines, read our city builder feature.