Anno 117's Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Turns Out to Be a Breathtaking First-Person View.
Surprisingly — did you realize gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117 Pax Romana from a first-person viewpoint? Should that be your response, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction the moment I learned this secret option. Excuse me while briefly leave managing my empire, delegate it to a reliable subordinate, take a wagon, and take a spin across the Roman world.
Activating the First-Person Mode
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana is typically played using a top-down camera. But, should you input a hidden code — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — you can explore the empire as an ordinary Roman. Since a similar easter egg appeared in the previous Anno title, I felt excited to experience it in the latest installment, yet I had doubts it would work prior to being submerged in a structural glitch (which probably wasn’t intended — this feature can be prone to glitches now and then).
Discovering the Roman Cityscape
Once I crawled out, I strolled the busy roads of my city and toured markets, breweries, flower fields, and cockle pickers — it was glorious to witness the fruits of my labor from a brand-new perspective. I noticed all kinds of details I might have missed from above: Doorway embellishments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, poultry scattering about, folks chilling on their balconies… Merely examining the shape of a window sill and the coloration on a post proves fascinating to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
More Than Just Walking
However, there's additional content to Anno 117’s first-person mode beyond simply walking the paths. I became extraordinarily excited when I found out that not only could I look upon farming fields, but also access them. And even though I thought interiors would be restricted, I could walk onto earthen quarries, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building as teaching was underway, and intrude into private gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the creators allocated resources for that), yet it's completely feasible stroll around a barley farm, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and look within any modest shelter as long as the door is absent.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
Even though I expected to observe my settlement depicted with outdated visual quality, besides some crude animations and sometimes citizens positioned within a bench rather than on a bench, the first-person view appears much better than expected. The intricately designed surfaces (particularly rock faces) 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, brick decoloration, pupils, and pine tree leaves. The night, featuring dancing flames and celestial bodies twinkling afar, creates a particularly moody setting, and feels much less frightening compared to Anno 1800, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble terrifying apparitions now.
Experimentation and Customization
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I opted to try different commands, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and zoom in or out — the last option enabling me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and revert. I then experimented with certain numeric keys and found I could alter my representative's visual design. Golden robe? Ruby clothing? Blue and purple toga? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You may carry a sword and shield, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you hit the interaction button, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. Should you be curious, eliminating citizens cannot be done (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, since they're incredibly amusing. Only seconds after I landed the first-person view, 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 gran will have your head.” Rightly so, Roman dad. One lovely local Celt then proceeded to praise my outstanding integration methods by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” while some cranky old lady chose to intimidate me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just as I assumed I’d discovered all there is to discover within the game's immersive perspective, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Entirely by accident, I selected a carriage and was promptly seated on the box. Oxen, donkeys, even people-powered transports; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey cart, in particular, travels rather rapidly, but don't anticipate open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Fighting Restrictions
The sole aspect that let me down in Anno 117’s first-person mode was discovering my inability to participate in combat situations. Wearing my military outfit, I ran up to the enemy in the midst of battle and endeavored to damage them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their limbs waving wildly, proved very satisfying, but it would’ve been cool to successfully impact objects via my incendiary bolts.
