Anno 117 Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Is a Impressive First-Person Mode.
Hold on — were you aware it's possible to experience Anno 117 Pax Romana in first-person? Should that be your response, your surprise matches as my own reaction when I discovered this concealed mode. I must temporarily abandon my empire’s management, entrust it to a reliable subordinate, commandere a carriage, and take a spin across the Roman world.
Activating the First-Person View
Being a city-building title, the game Anno 117 usually operates from an overhead perspective. Yet, when you input a hidden code — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — it becomes possible to roam the empire as an ordinary Roman. Since a similar easter egg appeared in Anno 1800, I looked forward to experience it in the latest installment, yet I had doubts it would operate until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (possibly an unexpected bug — this option can be prone to glitches now and then).
Discovering the Roman Cityscape
After extracting myself, I strolled the lively avenues through my metropolis and visited markets, breweries, blossom gardens, and seafood collectors — it was glorious to observe the fruits of my labor using an entirely new viewpoint. I observed all kinds of details that would escape notice from the top-down view: Front door decorations, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, fowl roaming freely, citizens lounging on their terraces… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the coloration on a post is quite interesting to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
More Than Just Walking
But there’s more to Anno 117’s first-person mode beyond simply walking the paths. I became extraordinarily excited upon discovering that besides being able to look upon agricultural plots, but also enter them. And despite my expectation structures would be inaccessible, I was able to enter earthen quarries, investigate a respected schoolhouse while lessons were in session, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the creators planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely meander across a cereal plantation, observe people digging and transporting bags, and take a peek inside any small shack as long as the door is absent.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
Although I was fully prepared to see my metropolis represented using primitive rendering, apart from certain rough movements and periodic inhabitants sitting within a bench as opposed to atop a bench, the first-person view appears much better than expected. The meticulously crafted materials (particularly rock faces) shouldn't logically be this impressive within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You might not observe separate follicular elements, but you will see writings on surfaces, sparks flying from torches, brick decoloration, pupils, and conifer needles. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and celestial bodies twinkling afar, creates a particularly moody setting, and proves significantly less intimidating versus the earlier title, given that the populace appears unlike sleep paralysis demons anymore.
Experimentation and Customization
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective has no guided tutorial, I decided to experiment a bit, and immediately located the options to jump, sprint, and adjusting the view — the last option enabling me to switch between first and third-person views and back. I then decided to hit certain numeric keys and found I could alter my avatar's look. Yellow toga? Ruby clothing? Azure and violet outfit? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You may carry a sword and shield, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you hit the interaction button, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. Should you be curious, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I attempted, naturally).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, since they're incredibly amusing. Moments after I entered the first-person view, 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.” Understandable stance, father character. A friendly native Celtic person then began complimenting my excellent cross-cultural strategies by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” whereas an irritable elderly woman chose to intimidate me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Joy of Joyriding
Just when I thought I uncovered all possible content in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving through classical settlements. Entirely by accident, I selected a carriage and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Oxen, donkeys, even human-pulled carts; you can control each one as desired. The donkey cart, in particular, travels rather rapidly, although you shouldn't expect Grand Theft Auto-style mischief — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Battle Constraints
The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was learning about my exclusion from in any fighting. Equipped in warrior attire, I charged toward adversaries amidst fighting and tried to harm them, only to be ignored completely. The front-row seat remained quite impressive, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, proved very satisfying, but it would’ve been cool to actually hit something with my burning arrows.
