Anno 117 Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Is a Impressive First-Person Mode.
Surprisingly — did you realize it's possible to experience the game Anno 117 in first-person? If that’s your reaction, you’re just as shocked as I was the moment I learned this concealed mode. Excuse me while temporarily abandon managing my empire, entrust it to a reliable subordinate, take a wagon, and go for a joyride around the classical city.
How to Access the First-Person View
In its role as a city-builder, Anno 117 Pax Romana is typically played from a bird's-eye view. But, should you press a covert button sequence — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you gain the ability to walk the realm as a regular inhabitant. Because an analogous secret appeared in the earlier game Anno 1800, I felt excited to try it out in the latest installment, though I was uncertain it would function until I found myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (likely not meant to happen — this feature can be prone to glitches now and then).
Exploring the Ancient Streets
After extracting myself, I wandered the bustling streets across my settlement and visited shops, taverns, floral patches, and cockle pickers — it was glorious to witness my diligent efforts through a fresh lens. I observed all kinds of details I wouldn’t have spotted from above: Front door decorations, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, fowl roaming freely, people relaxing on their verandas… Merely examining the design of a windowsill and the coating on a pillar is quite interesting to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
More Than Just Walking
However, there's additional content to the game's immersive perspective beyond simply walking the paths. I felt particularly pleased upon discovering that besides being able to view crop lands, but also access them. And although I’d assumed interiors would be restricted, I could walk onto mud extraction sites, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building during active classes, and intrude into private gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the studio have the budget for that), but it’s entirely possible 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
While I was completely ready to witness my city rendered using primitive rendering, besides some crude animations and periodic inhabitants sitting in a bench instead of on a bench, the first-person view appears far superior to anticipations. The highly detailed textures (especially stone surfaces) are unexpectedly excellent in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You might not observe specific hair details, however, you can observe wall inscriptions, sparks flying from torches, discoloration of masonry, eye details, and conifer needles. The night, featuring dancing flames and distant stellar illumination, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary compared to Anno 1800, now that the citizens don’t look like terrifying apparitions now.
Discovery and Modification
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I opted to try different commands, and promptly found the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — with the latter allowing me to change from first-person to third-person mode and back. I then decided to hit various digit inputs and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Amber garment? Crimson attire? Azure and violet outfit? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You can wield a blade and protection, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; when you press the action key, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. In case you’re wondering, 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, because they’re way too funny. Moments after I entered the immersive perspective, I heard a parent advising their offspring that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you feed it one more chicken, your gran will have your head.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A friendly native Celtic person then began complimenting my excellent cross-cultural strategies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female decided to threaten me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
Just when I thought I uncovered all possible content in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving in Ancient Rome. Completely unexpectedly, I selected a carriage and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Oxen, donkeys, even people-powered transports; you can control each one as desired. The donkey-powered transport, notably, moves quite quickly, although you shouldn't expect open-world vehicular chaos — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Combat Limitations
The single feature that frustrated me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I approached opposing forces during active combat and attempted to attack them, but was entirely disregarded. The proximate observation was still rather spectacular, and watching the enemy run, their arms flailing about, proved very satisfying, yet it would have been exciting to actually hit something using my fiery projectiles.
