Anno 117: Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Turns Out to Be a Impressive First-Person Perspective.
Surprisingly — did you realize you can play Anno 117 Pax Romana using a first-person camera? If you're thinking that, you feel equally astonished as I was when I discovered this concealed mode. Allow me to temporarily abandon overseeing my civilization, entrust it to a trusted assistant, commandere a carriage, and enjoy a ride across the Roman world.
Unlocking the First-Person Feature
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana is typically played from an overhead perspective. Yet, when you input a hidden code — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you gain the ability to walk the empire as an ordinary Roman. Because an analogous secret appeared in the previous Anno title, I looked forward to experience it in the latest installment, but I wasn’t sure it would work until I found myself stuck in a Celtic building (possibly an unexpected bug — this option tends to be somewhat unstable occasionally).
Exploring the Ancient Streets
Once I crawled out, I walked the lively avenues across my settlement and toured markets, breweries, floral patches, and seafood collectors — it felt magnificent to observe all my hard work from a brand-new perspective. I observed a variety of intricacies that would escape notice from above: Doorway embellishments, an ass transporting a floral pail, chickens running loose, citizens lounging on their terraces… Simply noticing the shape of a window sill and the coating on a pillar is quite interesting for those not residing in classical times.
Beyond Simple Strolling
Yet, the experience extends to the game's immersive perspective aside from meandering through streets. I became extraordinarily excited upon discovering that not only could I observe farming fields, but also access them. And although I’d assumed interiors would be restricted, I managed to access mud extraction sites, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and invade personal courtyards. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the developers have the budget for that), but it’s entirely possible stroll around a barley farm, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack provided the entrance is missing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
Although I was fully prepared to observe my settlement depicted using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and sometimes citizens positioned in a bench as opposed to atop a bench, the immersive perspective seems much better than expected. The highly detailed textures (particularly rock faces) really have no business being this good in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You might not observe separate follicular elements, yet you will notice writings on surfaces, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, pupils, and conifer needles. Evening, with glowing light sources and celestial bodies twinkling afar, 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 now.
Testing and Personalization
Given the covert first-person feature lacks official documentation, I opted to try different commands, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — with the latter allowing me to change from first-person to third-person mode and return. I then decided to hit certain numeric keys and found I could alter my representative's visual design. Amber garment? Red toga? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You can wield a blade and protection, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; when you press the action key, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. Should you be curious, 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, because they’re way too funny. Moments after I entered first-person mode, I heard a parent advising their offspring that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you offer additional fowl, your grandmother will be furious.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A friendly native Celtic person then began complimenting my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” while some cranky old lady opted to menace me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just when I thought I had found everything available within the game's immersive perspective, I experienced the pleasure of driving through classical settlements. Completely unexpectedly, I clicked on a wagon and was promptly seated on the box. Bovines, equines, even manually drawn vehicles; you can control each one as desired. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, is pretty fast, but don't anticipate any GTA-like shenanigans — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Battle Constraints
The only thing that disappointed me within the immersive perspective was finding out I couldn’t partake in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I approached opposing forces amidst fighting and endeavored to damage them, yet was completely overlooked. The proximate observation was nonetheless magnificent, and seeing opponents retreat, their limbs waving wildly, proved very satisfying, yet it would have been exciting to successfully impact objects using my fiery projectiles.
