Anno 117 Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Reveals Itself as a Stunning First-Person Perspective.
Hold on — were you aware you can play the game Anno 117 in first-person? If you're thinking that, you’re just as shocked as my own reaction the moment I learned this hidden feature. Excuse me while temporarily abandon overseeing my civilization, leave it in a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and take a spin around the classical city.
Unlocking the First-Person Mode
Being a city-building title, Anno 117: Pax Romana is normally experienced from a bird's-eye view. However, if you press a covert button sequence — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — it becomes possible to roam your domain as a common citizen. Given a comparable hidden feature was part of the earlier game Anno 1800, I felt excited to experience it in the new release, though I was uncertain it would work before I discovered myself submerged in a structural glitch (possibly an unexpected bug — this option can be prone to glitches now and then).
Roaming the Ancient Streets
Once I crawled out, I wandered the busy roads across my settlement and toured stalls, alehouses, flower fields, and seafood collectors — the experience was splendid to observe my diligent efforts through a fresh lens. I noticed a variety of intricacies that would escape notice from above: Front door decorations, an ass transporting a floral pail, chickens running loose, citizens lounging on their terraces… Simply noticing the design of a windowsill and the coating on a pillar is quite interesting to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Beyond Simple Strolling
But there’s more to the first-person feature in Anno 117 than strolling along the road. I felt particularly pleased when I found out that not only could I observe farming fields, but also step into them. And despite my expectation structures would be inaccessible, I managed to access clay pits, investigate a respected schoolhouse as teaching was underway, and invade personal courtyards. Don't bother with door access (not even the creators planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and look within any modest shelter as long as the door is absent.
Graphics and Ambiance
Although I was fully prepared to see my metropolis represented using primitive rendering, apart from certain rough movements and sometimes citizens positioned inside seating as opposed to atop a bench, the immersive perspective seems much better than expected. The intricately designed surfaces (especially stone surfaces) shouldn't logically be this impressive in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You may not see separate follicular elements, but you will see writings on surfaces, fiery particles from lamps, fading on bricks, pupils, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and stars shining in the distance, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and proves significantly less intimidating compared to Anno 1800, now that the citizens don’t look like terrifying apparitions these days.
Testing and Personalization
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode has no guided tutorial, I decided to experiment a bit, and promptly found the functions for jumping, dashing, and changing perspective — the last option enabling me to switch between first and third-person views and revert. I then decided to hit various digit inputs and discovered that I could change my avatar's look. Amber garment? Red toga? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You may carry a sword and shield, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; if you hit the interaction button, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. If you're interested, harming inhabitants is impossible (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 immersive perspective, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you feed it one more chicken, your grandmother will be furious.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A pleasant regional Celt then proceeded to praise my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” whereas an irritable elderly woman chose to intimidate me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just as I assumed I had found everything available in the title's first-person feature, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Entirely by accident, I clicked on a wagon and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Bovines, equines, even manually drawn vehicles; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey-powered transport, notably, travels rather rapidly, though you shouldn’t imagine any GTA-like shenanigans — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Combat Limitations
The single feature that frustrated me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was discovering my inability to participate in combat situations. Equipped in warrior attire, I approached opposing forces during active combat and endeavored to damage them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat remained quite impressive, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, proved very satisfying, but it would’ve been cool to effectively strike targets with my burning arrows.
