Anno 117: Pax Romana's Top Secret Reveals Itself as a Stunning First-Person Mode.
Hold on — were you aware gamers have the option to enjoy the game Anno 117 from a first-person viewpoint? If that’s your reaction, your surprise matches compared to my initial response when I discovered this secret option. Excuse me while briefly leave my empire’s management, delegate it to a capable deputy, borrow a cart, and take a spin through Ancient Rome.
Unlocking the First-Person View
Being a city-building title, Anno 117: Pax Romana usually operates from an overhead perspective. Yet, when you enter a secret combination — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — it becomes possible to roam the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature was included in Anno 1800, I looked forward to experience it in the new release, but I wasn’t sure it would operate until I found myself stuck in a Celtic building (likely not meant to happen — this feature tends to be prone to glitches now and then).
Discovering the Roman Cityscape
Once I crawled out, I wandered the lively avenues across my settlement and visited shops, taverns, blossom gardens, and shellfish gatherers — the experience was splendid to see all my hard work through a fresh lens. I noticed numerous fine points I might have missed when viewing from overhead: Entryway ornaments, an ass transporting a floral pail, chickens running loose, folks chilling on their balconies… Even just observing the design of a windowsill and the coloration on a post becomes engaging to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
More Than Just Walking
Yet, the experience extends to the first-person feature in Anno 117 than strolling along the road. I was especially delighted when I found out that I could not just view farming fields, but also step into them. And even though I thought interiors would be restricted, I could walk onto mud extraction sites, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building during active classes, and invade personal courtyards. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the studio planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely meander across a cereal plantation, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and take a peek inside any small shack when there's no doorway obstructing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
Even though I expected to see my metropolis represented using primitive rendering, apart from certain rough movements and the occasional civilian resting inside seating rather than on a bench, the first-person view appears much better than expected. The highly detailed textures (especially stone surfaces) really have no business being this good for a title that remains primarily overhead. You won't necessarily notice any individual strands of hair, yet you will notice wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, fading on bricks, iris elements, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and celestial bodies twinkling afar, creates a particularly moody setting, and proves significantly less intimidating versus the earlier title, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble nightmarish entities these days.
Discovery and Modification
Given the covert first-person feature lacks official documentation, I opted to try different commands, and immediately located the functions for jumping, dashing, and zoom in or out — the last option enabling me to switch between first and third-person views and return. I then experimented with some number buttons and found I could alter my avatar's look. Amber garment? Ruby clothing? Blue and purple toga? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You may carry a sword and shield, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you activate the engage command, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. If you're interested, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, as they're remarkably entertaining. Moments after I entered the immersive perspective, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you feed it one more chicken, your elder will punish you.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then began complimenting my outstanding integration methods by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” whereas an irritable elderly woman opted to menace me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Thrill of Transportation
At the moment I believed I’d discovered all there is to discover in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving across historical settings. Entirely by accident, I interacted with a cart and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Cattle, asses, even manually drawn vehicles; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey cart, in particular, is pretty fast, although you shouldn't expect Grand Theft Auto-style mischief — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Fighting Restrictions
The single feature that frustrated me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was learning about my exclusion from in any fighting. Equipped in warrior attire, I approached opposing forces during active combat and endeavored to damage them, yet was completely overlooked. The proximate observation was still rather spectacular, and seeing opponents retreat, their arms flailing about, seemed enormously rewarding, yet it would have been exciting to actually hit something via my incendiary bolts.
