Anno 117: Pax Romana's Hidden Gem Turns Out to Be a Impressive First-Person Mode.
Surprisingly — did you realize it's possible to experience Anno 117: Pax Romana in first-person? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction when I discovered this concealed mode. Allow me to briefly leave my empire’s management, delegate it to a capable deputy, borrow a cart, and enjoy a ride through Ancient Rome.
Unlocking the First-Person Feature
Being a city-building title, the game Anno 117 is typically played using a top-down camera. However, if you enter a secret combination — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — you gain the ability to walk the empire as an ordinary Roman. Since a similar easter egg appeared in Anno 1800, I felt excited to experience it in Ubisoft's newest game, but I wasn’t sure it would function prior to being chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (likely not meant to happen — this option is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Roaming the Roman Cityscape
Once I crawled out, I strolled the busy roads through my metropolis and explored shops, taverns, floral patches, and seafood collectors — it was glorious to see my diligent efforts through a fresh lens. I noticed a variety of intricacies I wouldn’t have spotted when viewing from overhead: Entryway ornaments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, chickens running loose, citizens lounging on their terraces… Simply noticing the design of a windowsill and the coloration on a post is quite interesting to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Further Than Mere Wandering
Yet, the experience extends to the game's immersive perspective aside from meandering through streets. I was especially delighted upon discovering that I could not just view farming fields, but also enter them. And despite my expectation interiors would be restricted, I managed to access mud extraction sites, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building as teaching was underway, and intrude into private gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the developers have the budget for that), but it’s entirely possible stroll around a barley farm, observe people digging and transporting bags, and glance into any tiny hut as long as the door is absent.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
Even though I expected to witness my city rendered using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and periodic inhabitants sitting within a bench instead of on a bench, the immersive perspective seems far superior to anticipations. The highly detailed textures (particularly rock faces) shouldn't logically be this impressive for a title that remains primarily overhead. You might not observe specific hair details, but you will see engravings on walls, sparks flying from torches, brick decoloration, iris elements, and pine tree leaves. Evening, with glowing light sources and distant stellar illumination, creates a particularly moody setting, and feels much less frightening relative to the previous game, now that the citizens don’t look like terrifying apparitions these days.
Discovery and Modification
Given the covert first-person feature 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 — with the latter allowing me to switch between first and third-person views and revert. I then experimented with some number buttons and found I could alter my avatar's look. Amber garment? Ruby clothing? Azure and violet outfit? 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’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. In case you’re wondering, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, as they're remarkably entertaining. Moments after I entered the first-person view, I overheard a father telling his child that “Owning a fox is prohibited and should you provide another poultry, your elder will punish you.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A pleasant regional Celt then proceeded to praise my outstanding integration methods by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” while some cranky old lady decided to threaten me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
At the moment I believed I had found everything available in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I experienced the pleasure of driving in Ancient Rome. Totally unintentionally, I selected a carriage and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even people-powered transports; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey cart, in particular, moves quite quickly, but don't anticipate Grand Theft Auto-style mischief — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Combat Limitations
The only thing that disappointed me within the immersive perspective was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Sporting my soldier fit, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and tried to harm them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view was nonetheless magnificent, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, proved very satisfying, but it would’ve been cool to actually hit something via my incendiary bolts.
