Can You Play Anno 1800 on a Steam Deck?

If you love the intersection of history and city building games like me Anno 1800 is a must-play. However, city builders tend to be long and enjoyable games. As a busy person, I spend more time than I should in waiting rooms, on hold on the phone, and waiting for public transit.

But what if… I could take my favorite city building game with me?

Anno 1800 is one of the games I’ve specifically considered buying a Steam Deck just to play. Long-lasting strategy games like Anno 1800 are super replayable and rewarding. When I feel like the world isn’t moving fast enough (waiting for the Metro, for example), it feels good to make progress and help the little pixel people who live in my cities in games.

I don’t have a Steam Deck yet, but hope to get one soon. Anno 1800, of course, is already in my games library.

Does Anno 1800 Work on Steam Deck?

Officially, Ubisoft lists Anno 1800 as “unsupported” for Steam Deck on the game’s Steam store page.

Has that stopped strategy gamers from playing it on Steam Deck anyway? Of course not. The Steam community has come up with some instructions and workarounds, which includes deleting a lengthy report file periodically to make sure the game still works in game mode on Steam Deck. Allegedly, it is possible to run the game from the SD card of the Steam Deck, or on the internal drive.

It takes a bit of work to get it going, which is why it is likely still officially listed as unsupported.

Ubisoft’s launcher has created some issues with running their games on Steam Deck in the past, but here, the game itself is just unsupported. This is likely due to the complexity of the UI, which many don’t enjoy playing on a smaller device.

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We hope you enjoyed our guide to running Anno 1800 on Steam Deck. Please check out Gamer Journalist on Facebook to join the discussion and keep up to date with our content. You may also want to check out our first look at SpellForce: Conquest of Eo, a turn-based combat RPG.