Anno 117: Pax Romana's Top Secret Is a Stunning First-Person Mode.
Surprisingly — did you realize you can play the game Anno 117 using a first-person camera? If you're thinking that, you’re just as shocked as my own reaction the moment I learned this hidden feature. Allow me to temporarily abandon managing my empire, entrust it to a trusted assistant, borrow a cart, and enjoy a ride across the Roman world.
Unlocking the First-Person View
In its role as a city-builder, Anno 117 Pax Romana is typically played using a top-down camera. However, if you enter a secret combination — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — it becomes possible to roam your domain as a common citizen. Because an analogous secret was part of Anno 1800, I felt excited to experience it in the new release, but I wasn’t sure it would work before I discovered myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (which probably wasn’t intended — this option is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Roaming the Ancient Streets
Once I crawled out, I strolled the lively avenues across my settlement and toured stalls, alehouses, flower fields, and shellfish gatherers — it was glorious to observe my diligent efforts from a brand-new perspective. I noticed a variety of intricacies I wouldn’t have spotted from the top-down view: Doorway embellishments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, chickens running loose, folks chilling on their balconies… Simply noticing the form of a ledge and the coloration on a post proves fascinating to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Further Than Mere Wandering
But there’s more to Anno 117’s first-person mode than strolling along the road. I was especially delighted upon discovering that I could not just look upon agricultural plots, but also access them. And despite my expectation the building models would be off-limits, I could walk onto earthen quarries, tour an esteemed educational structure 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 stroll around a barley farm, observe people digging and transporting bags, and look within any modest shelter when there's no doorway obstructing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
While I was completely ready to witness my city rendered in PlayStation 1 graphics, besides some crude animations and periodic inhabitants sitting within a bench instead of on a bench, the immersive perspective seems far superior to anticipations. The meticulously crafted materials (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 engravings on walls, sparks flying from torches, fading on bricks, pupils, and pine tree leaves. The night, featuring dancing flames and distant stellar illumination, creates a particularly moody setting, and proves significantly less intimidating relative to the previous game, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble sleep paralysis demons now.
Experimentation and Customization
Given the covert first-person feature lacks official documentation, I decided to experiment a bit, 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 subsequently tried pressing various digit inputs and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Amber garment? Red toga? Azure and violet outfit? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; when you press the action key, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. If you're interested, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I attempted, naturally).
Comedy and Population Encounters
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, since they're incredibly amusing. Shortly after I activated first-person mode, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you offer additional fowl, your grandmother will be furious.” Understandable stance, father character. A friendly native Celtic person then began complimenting my outstanding integration methods by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female opted to menace me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
At the moment I believed I had found everything available within the game's immersive perspective, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Totally unintentionally, I clicked on a wagon and quickly occupied the transport. 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 (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Fighting Restrictions
The only thing that disappointed me regarding the first-person view was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Equipped in warrior attire, I approached opposing forces in the midst of battle and endeavored to damage them, only to be ignored completely. The front-row seat was still rather spectacular, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, seemed enormously rewarding, though it might have been amazing to effectively strike targets via my incendiary bolts.
