In a blog post of the Anno Union, the developers announced that Ubisoft entered into a partnership with Epic Games regarding Anno 1800. The game will be available digitally after the release on April 16 only in the Epic Games Store and Ubisoft. On Steam it will be removed (unless you already purchased it on Steam).

Anno 1800 is now the second game removed from Steam and released onto Epic Games. If you want to own the game on Steam, you have to make a purchase before the release of Anno on April 16th. After this timeframe, the game is excluded from sales on the platform. Nevertheless, owners of the Steam version will receive all future additional content at the same time. A bit confusing for sure.

“Once the game has been released on April 16, 2019, Anno 1800 will only be available digitally on the Ubisoft Store and the Epic Games store,” Ubisoft’s announcement said. “Pre-orders on Steam can be made until the release of the game. Everyone who pre-ordered Anno 1800 on Steam will be able to play the game upon release and will automatically get all future updates and content.”

Players who want to play the Open Beta from Anno 1800 on April 12th through April 14th have to switch to the other platforms. These will only be at Epic Games and Uplay. Epic Games is pursuing its aggressive strategy of expanding the store and securing critical titles. However, the company has already announced that it will not be able to base its store model on such partnerships in the long term. 

Ubisoft: Anno 1800 will be removed from Steam on release date