Anno 117's Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Turns Out to Be a Breathtaking First-Person Mode.
Wait — did you know it's possible to experience Anno 117 Pax Romana in first-person? If you're thinking that, your surprise matches compared to my initial response upon finding out this hidden feature. Allow me to step away from managing my empire, entrust it to a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and take a spin around the classical city.
Activating the First-Person Feature
In its role as a city-builder, Anno 117: Pax Romana usually operates from a bird's-eye view. Yet, when you enter a secret combination — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you gain the ability to walk the empire as an ordinary Roman. Because an analogous secret appeared in the earlier game Anno 1800, I looked forward to test it in the new release, yet I had doubts it would work until I found myself stuck in a Celtic building (possibly an unexpected bug — this mode tends to be prone to glitches now and then).
Exploring the Streets of Rome
After extracting myself, I wandered the lively avenues through my metropolis and visited shops, taverns, flower fields, and shellfish gatherers — the experience was splendid to observe all my hard work from a brand-new perspective. I detected a variety of intricacies I might have missed when viewing from overhead: Doorway embellishments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, poultry scattering about, folks chilling on their balconies… Even just observing the shape of a window sill and the paint layers on a column is quite interesting to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Beyond Simple Strolling
However, there's additional content to Anno 117’s first-person mode aside from meandering through streets. I was especially delighted when I found out that not only could I view crop lands, but also enter 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 bother with door access (not even the creators planned for that functionality), yet it's completely feasible meander across a cereal plantation, observe people digging and transporting bags, and take a peek inside any small shack when there's no doorway obstructing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
While I was completely ready to see my metropolis represented with outdated visual quality, excluding a few unpolished motions and the occasional civilian resting inside seating instead of on a bench, first-person mode looks considerably improved over predictions. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) shouldn't logically be this impressive in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You may not see specific hair details, however, you can observe engravings on walls, sparks flying from torches, discoloration of masonry, iris elements, and pine tree leaves. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and stars shining in the distance, is especially atmospheric, and proves significantly less intimidating versus the earlier title, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble sleep paralysis demons anymore.
Discovery and Modification
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective has no guided tutorial, I opted to try different commands, and immediately located the options to jump, sprint, and zoom in or out — the last option enabling me to change from first-person to third-person mode and back. I then experimented with some number buttons and found I could alter my representative's visual design. Yellow toga? Red toga? Blue and purple toga? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You can wield a blade and protection, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you hit the interaction button, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. In case you’re wondering, eliminating citizens cannot be done (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, as they're remarkably entertaining. Shortly after I activated the immersive perspective, I overheard a father telling his child that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you offer additional fowl, your grandmother will be furious.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then proceeded to praise my outstanding integration methods by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female decided to threaten me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just when I thought I had found everything available in the title's first-person feature, I encountered the delight of riding across historical settings. Entirely by accident, I interacted with a cart and quickly occupied the transport. Cattle, asses, even human-pulled carts; you may operate any of them freely. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, moves quite quickly, but don't anticipate open-world vehicular chaos — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Fighting Restrictions
The single feature that frustrated me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was learning about my exclusion from in any fighting. Sporting my soldier fit, I approached opposing forces in the midst of battle and tried to harm them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat was still rather spectacular, and observing foes flee, their appendages thrashing around, felt highly gratifying, though it might have been amazing to successfully impact objects via my incendiary bolts.
