The Great Battles of Hannibal was announced by developer Erudite Software and publisher Interactive Magic in early 1997, alongside its sequel Caesar.

[1] Erudite had signed with Interactive Magic in mid-1996 to publish Hannibal's predecessor, The Great Battles of Alexander, after that game's long and troubled development history.

By adding two rules: Pre-shock missile fire and the ability to give line commands we have been able to capture the critical aspects of the Roman tactical system".

[14] Scott Udell of Computer Games Strategy Plus called Hannibal an improvement upon its predecessor, in that it retained Alexander's best features while fixing its worst.

Describing Hannibal's place in the Great Battles series, he summarized, "It is perhaps unwise to suggest that any wargame is 'the last word' on a given subject [...] but it's hard to imagine how these three games could be outclassed in the foreseeable future.