Ubisoft recently announced that an expansion to Anno 1404, 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