Anno 117's Pax Romana's Hidden Gem Reveals Itself as a Impressive First-Person View.
Wait — did you know gamers have the option to enjoy the game Anno 117 from a first-person viewpoint? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as I was when I discovered this concealed mode. I must step away from managing my empire, leave it in a reliable subordinate, take a wagon, and go for a joyride around the classical city.
How to Access the First-Person Feature
Being a city-building title, Anno 117: Pax Romana is typically played from a bird's-eye view. Yet, when you input a hidden code — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you gain the ability to walk your domain as a common citizen. Since a similar easter egg was part of the previous Anno title, I felt excited to test it in the new release, but I wasn’t sure it would function before I discovered myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (which probably wasn’t intended — this option is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Exploring the Roman Cityscape
Once I crawled out, I strolled the busy roads through my metropolis and visited markets, breweries, blossom gardens, and seafood collectors — the experience was splendid to see all my hard work from a brand-new perspective. I detected numerous fine points that would escape notice when viewing from overhead: Front door decorations, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, chickens running loose, citizens lounging on their terraces… Merely examining the shape of a window sill and the coloration on a post becomes engaging to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Further Than Mere Wandering
However, there's additional content to the game's immersive perspective beyond simply walking the paths. I was especially delighted the moment I learned that not only could I observe crop lands, but also access them. And even though I thought structures would be inaccessible, I could walk onto clay pits, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the studio allocated resources for that), but it’s entirely possible stroll around a barley farm, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and look within any modest shelter when there's no doorway obstructing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
While I was completely ready to see my metropolis represented using primitive rendering, besides some crude animations and periodic inhabitants sitting within a bench rather than on a bench, the immersive perspective seems much better than expected. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) are unexpectedly excellent for a title that remains primarily overhead. You may not see any individual strands of hair, however, you can observe writings on surfaces, fiery particles from lamps, fading on bricks, pupils, and pine tree leaves. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and celestial bodies twinkling afar, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and feels much less frightening versus the earlier title, now that the citizens don’t look like terrifying apparitions anymore.
Experimentation and Customization
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I chose to test various actions, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — the last option enabling me to change from first-person to third-person mode and revert. I then decided to hit some number buttons and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Golden robe? Ruby clothing? Blue and purple toga? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; if you hit the interaction button, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. In case you’re wondering, harming inhabitants is impossible (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Comedy and Population Encounters
However, I had no desire to injure my people, as they're remarkably entertaining. Moments after I entered the first-person view, I heard a parent advising their offspring that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you offer additional fowl, your grandmother will be furious.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A friendly native Celtic person then proceeded to praise my excellent cross-cultural strategies by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” whereas an irritable elderly woman decided to threaten me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
Just as I assumed I’d discovered all there is to discover in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I experienced the pleasure of driving through classical settlements. Entirely by accident, I selected a carriage and was promptly seated on the box. Bovines, equines, even human-pulled carts; you may operate any of them freely. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, is pretty fast, but don't anticipate open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Battle Constraints
The single feature that frustrated me regarding the first-person view was finding out I couldn’t partake in battle encounters. Sporting my soldier fit, I charged toward adversaries during active combat and attempted to attack them, only to be ignored completely. The front-row seat was still rather spectacular, and seeing opponents retreat, their limbs waving wildly, seemed enormously rewarding, yet it would have been exciting to effectively strike targets via my incendiary bolts.
