Anno 117 Pax Romana's Top Secret Is a Breathtaking First-Person Mode.
Hold on — were you aware you can play Anno 117: Pax Romana from a first-person viewpoint? Should that be your response, you’re just as shocked as my own reaction upon finding out this hidden feature. Excuse me while briefly leave overseeing my civilization, entrust it to a reliable subordinate, commandere a carriage, and enjoy a ride around the classical city.
Activating the First-Person Feature
In its role as a city-builder, the game Anno 117 is typically played using a top-down camera. But, should you press a covert button sequence — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls or else “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. Given a comparable hidden feature was part of the previous Anno title, I looked forward to try it out in Ubisoft's newest game, yet I had doubts it would work until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (possibly an unexpected bug — this option tends to be prone to glitches now and then).
Roaming the Streets of Rome
After extracting myself, I wandered the lively avenues across my settlement and visited shops, taverns, flower fields, and shellfish gatherers — it felt magnificent to observe the fruits of my labor using an entirely new viewpoint. I detected a variety of intricacies I might have missed when viewing from overhead: Front door decorations, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, chickens running loose, citizens lounging on their terraces… Even just observing the shape of a window sill and the paint layers on a column becomes engaging to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
Further Than Mere Wandering
Yet, the experience extends to Anno 117’s first-person mode aside from meandering through streets. I became extraordinarily excited when I found out that not only could I view agricultural plots, but also step into them. And although I’d assumed the building models would be off-limits, I could walk onto mud extraction sites, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building while lessons were in session, and intrude into private gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the creators have the budget for that), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and take a peek inside any small shack provided the entrance is missing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
Even though I expected to see my metropolis represented in PlayStation 1 graphics, besides some crude animations and sometimes citizens positioned inside seating rather than on a bench, first-person mode looks far superior to anticipations. The highly detailed textures (notably masonry elements) really have no business being this good within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You might not observe separate follicular elements, but you will see writings on surfaces, fiery particles from lamps, discoloration of masonry, eye details, and pine tree leaves. Evening, with glowing light sources and distant stellar illumination, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary relative to the previous game, now that the citizens don’t look like sleep paralysis demons anymore.
Discovery and Modification
Given the covert first-person feature doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I decided to experiment a bit, and immediately located the functions for jumping, dashing, and changing perspective — with the latter allowing me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and back. I then decided to hit certain numeric keys and discovered that I could change my character’s appearance. Amber garment? Red toga? Azure and violet outfit? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you hit the interaction button, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. Should you be curious, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Comedy and Population Encounters
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, since they're incredibly amusing. Only seconds after I landed the immersive perspective, I overheard a father telling his child that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you offer additional fowl, your elder will punish you.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A friendly native Celtic person then began complimenting my outstanding integration methods by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” while some cranky old lady opted to menace me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
Just when I thought I’d discovered all there is to discover within the game's immersive perspective, I encountered the delight of riding across historical settings. Totally unintentionally, I interacted with a cart and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Oxen, donkeys, even human-pulled carts; you can control each one as desired. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, travels rather rapidly, though you shouldn’t imagine open-world vehicular chaos — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Battle Constraints
The single feature that frustrated me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was discovering my inability to participate in combat situations. Wearing my military outfit, I approached opposing forces amidst fighting and tried to harm them, yet was completely overlooked. The proximate observation remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their limbs waving wildly, felt highly gratifying, but it would’ve been cool to actually hit something with my burning arrows.
