Anno 117 Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Reveals Itself as a Stunning First-Person Perspective.
Wait — did you know you can play Anno 117 Pax Romana from a first-person viewpoint? If you're thinking that, you’re just as shocked compared to my initial response upon finding out this secret option. Excuse me while step away from overseeing my civilization, entrust it to a reliable subordinate, borrow a cart, and enjoy a ride through Ancient Rome.
Unlocking the First-Person Feature
Being a city-building title, Anno 117 Pax Romana is normally experienced using a top-down camera. However, if you input a hidden code — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — you can explore the realm as a regular inhabitant. Given a comparable hidden feature appeared in Anno 1800, I was eager to experience it in the latest installment, yet I had doubts it would operate before I discovered myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (which probably wasn’t intended — this mode is prone to glitches now and then).
Roaming the Ancient Streets
Once I crawled out, I wandered the lively avenues of my city and visited stalls, alehouses, floral patches, and shellfish gatherers — it was glorious to witness all my hard work from a brand-new perspective. I noticed numerous fine points that would escape notice from the top-down view: Entryway ornaments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, poultry scattering about, people relaxing on their verandas… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the paint layers on a column becomes engaging to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Further Than Mere Wandering
Yet, the experience extends to the game's immersive perspective beyond simply walking the paths. I was especially delighted when I found out that besides being able to observe agricultural plots, but also enter them. And even though I thought interiors would be restricted, I could walk onto clay pits, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the studio planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and glance into any tiny hut when there's no doorway obstructing.
Appearance and Mood
Although I was fully prepared to observe my settlement depicted using primitive rendering, besides some crude animations and the occasional civilian resting inside seating as opposed to atop a bench, the first-person view appears much better than expected. The intricately designed surfaces (especially stone surfaces) really have no business being this good for a title that remains primarily overhead. You may not see any individual strands of hair, however, you can observe engravings on walls, flames emitting from lights, fading on bricks, iris elements, and evergreen foliage. The night, featuring dancing flames and stars shining in the distance, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and feels much less frightening relative to the previous game, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble terrifying apparitions anymore.
Discovery and Modification
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I opted to try different commands, and quickly discovered the abilities to leap, run, and changing perspective — with the latter allowing me to switch between first and third-person views and return. I subsequently tried pressing various digit inputs and learned I could modify my representative's visual design. Amber garment? Crimson attire? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You may carry a sword and shield, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you activate the engage command, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. If you're interested, it’s not possible to kill civilians (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Comedy and Population Encounters
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, as they're remarkably entertaining. Moments after I entered the first-person view, I heard a parent advising their offspring that he “Can’t have a pet fox and should you provide another poultry, your gran will have your head.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A friendly native Celtic person then proceeded to praise my outstanding integration methods by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” while some cranky old lady opted to menace me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Thrill of Transportation
At the moment I believed I had found everything available within the game's immersive perspective, I experienced the pleasure of driving across historical settings. Entirely by accident, I interacted with a cart and was promptly seated on the box. Cattle, asses, even manually drawn vehicles; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey-powered transport, notably, travels rather rapidly, but don't anticipate open-world vehicular chaos — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Fighting Restrictions
The single feature that frustrated me regarding the first-person view was finding out I couldn’t partake in any fighting. Equipped in warrior attire, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and endeavored to damage them, only to be ignored completely. The proximate observation was still rather spectacular, and seeing opponents retreat, their arms flailing about, felt highly gratifying, but it would’ve been cool to effectively strike targets using my fiery projectiles.
