Anno 117's Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Turns Out to Be a Breathtaking First-Person View.
Wait — did you know you can play the game Anno 117 in first-person? Should that be your response, your surprise matches as my own reaction the moment I learned this secret option. Excuse me while briefly leave managing my empire, entrust it to a reliable subordinate, borrow a cart, and enjoy a ride around the classical city.
Activating the First-Person Feature
Being a city-building title, Anno 117: Pax Romana is typically played from an overhead perspective. Yet, when you press a covert button sequence — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you gain the ability to walk the realm as a regular inhabitant. Given a comparable hidden feature appeared in the earlier game Anno 1800, I felt excited to test it in the new release, but I wasn’t sure it would function before I discovered myself submerged in a structural glitch (likely not meant to happen — this feature is a little buggy at times).
Exploring the Streets of Rome
Upon freeing myself, I walked the lively avenues across my settlement and visited stalls, alehouses, floral patches, and seafood collectors — it felt magnificent to see my diligent efforts from a brand-new perspective. I observed all kinds of details I might have missed when viewing from overhead: Front door decorations, an ass transporting a floral pail, chickens running loose, citizens lounging on their terraces… Simply noticing the form of a ledge and the coloration on a post becomes engaging to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Further Than Mere Wandering
Yet, the experience extends to Anno 117’s first-person mode beyond simply walking the paths. I was especially delighted when I found out that not only could I look upon crop lands, but also enter them. And even though I thought interiors would be restricted, I was able to enter mud extraction sites, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and intrude into private gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the creators have the budget for that), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack when there's no doorway obstructing.
Graphics and Ambiance
Even though I expected to see my metropolis represented with outdated visual quality, apart from certain rough movements and sometimes citizens positioned inside seating rather than on a bench, the immersive perspective seems considerably improved over predictions. The intricately designed surfaces (particularly rock faces) shouldn't logically be this impressive for a title that remains primarily overhead. You may not see separate follicular elements, however, you can observe writings on surfaces, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, pupils, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and celestial bodies twinkling afar, is especially atmospheric, and proves significantly less intimidating compared to Anno 1800, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble nightmarish entities anymore.
Testing and Personalization
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I decided to experiment a bit, and promptly found the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — the zoom function permitting me to switch between first and third-person views and back. I subsequently tried pressing various digit inputs and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Amber garment? Crimson attire? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You can wield a blade and protection, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; when you press the action key, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. If you're interested, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I attempted, naturally).
Comedy and Population Encounters
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, since they're incredibly amusing. Only seconds after I landed the first-person view, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and should you provide another poultry, your grandmother will be furious.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A pleasant regional Celt then started applauding my outstanding integration methods by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female opted to menace me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Joy of Joyriding
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 in Ancient Rome. Totally unintentionally, I selected a carriage and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even manually drawn vehicles; you may operate any of them freely. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, travels rather rapidly, though you shouldn’t imagine any GTA-like shenanigans — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Battle Constraints
The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was discovering my inability to participate in any fighting. Sporting my soldier fit, I approached opposing forces during active combat and attempted to attack them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat was still rather spectacular, and seeing opponents retreat, their limbs waving wildly, felt highly gratifying, but it would’ve been cool to successfully impact objects via my incendiary bolts.
