Anno 117: Pax Romana's Top Secret Turns Out to Be a Impressive First-Person Perspective.
Hold on — were you aware you can play Anno 117 Pax Romana in first-person? If that’s your reaction, your surprise matches as I was upon finding out this hidden feature. Excuse me while temporarily abandon my empire’s management, leave it in a reliable subordinate, commandere a carriage, and take a spin across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person Mode
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana is normally experienced using a top-down camera. Yet, when you enter a secret combination — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you gain the ability to walk the realm as a regular inhabitant. Given a comparable hidden feature appeared in the previous Anno title, I looked forward to try it out in Ubisoft's newest game, yet I had doubts it would function before I discovered myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (likely not meant to happen — this option tends to be somewhat unstable occasionally).
Exploring the Roman Cityscape
After extracting myself, I strolled the lively avenues across my settlement and toured stalls, alehouses, flower fields, and cockle pickers — it was glorious to see the fruits of my labor from a brand-new perspective. I detected a variety of intricacies I might have missed from above: Doorway embellishments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, poultry scattering about, citizens lounging on their terraces… Merely examining the form of a ledge and the paint layers on a column is quite interesting to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
Beyond Simple Strolling
However, there's additional content to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I was especially delighted when I found out that not only could I view crop lands, but also step into them. And even though I thought the building models would be off-limits, I was able to enter earthen quarries, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building during active classes, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the developers planned for that functionality), but it’s entirely possible wander through a grain field, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and glance into any tiny hut provided the entrance is missing.
Graphics and Ambiance
Although I was fully prepared to witness my city rendered in PlayStation 1 graphics, excluding a few unpolished motions and sometimes citizens positioned inside seating rather than on a bench, the first-person view appears much better than expected. The intricately designed surfaces (especially stone surfaces) are unexpectedly excellent within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You won't necessarily notice specific hair details, however, you can observe wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, iris elements, and pine tree leaves. Nighttime, with its flickering fires 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 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 abilities to leap, run, and changing perspective — the last option enabling me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and return. I then decided to hit various digit inputs and found I could alter my avatar's look. Golden robe? Crimson attire? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; if you activate the engage command, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. In case you’re wondering, harming inhabitants is impossible (not that I attempted, naturally).
Comedy and Population Encounters
However, I had no desire to injure my people, as they're remarkably entertaining. Shortly after I activated first-person mode, 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 started applauding my excellent cross-cultural strategies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” while some cranky old lady chose to intimidate me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just when I thought I uncovered all possible content within the game's immersive perspective, I encountered the delight of riding across historical settings. Entirely by accident, I interacted with a cart and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even people-powered transports; you can drive them all at your leisure. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, travels rather rapidly, although you shouldn't expect any GTA-like shenanigans — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Fighting Restrictions
The only thing that disappointed me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Equipped in warrior attire, I ran up to the enemy in the midst of battle and attempted to attack them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their limbs waving wildly, seemed enormously rewarding, yet it would have been exciting to successfully impact objects with my burning arrows.
