Anno 117: Pax Romana's Hidden Gem Is a Breathtaking First-Person View.
Hold on — were you aware it's possible to experience Anno 117: Pax Romana from a first-person viewpoint? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction upon finding out this secret option. I must step away from overseeing my civilization, delegate it to a trusted assistant, commandere a carriage, and take a spin through Ancient Rome.
Activating the First-Person Mode
Being a city-building title, Anno 117 Pax Romana is typically played from an overhead perspective. However, if you press a covert button sequence — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — it becomes possible to roam your domain as a common citizen. Because an analogous secret was part of Anno 1800, I felt excited to test it in Ubisoft's newest game, but I wasn’t sure it would operate until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (likely not meant to happen — this feature can be somewhat unstable occasionally).
Roaming the Streets of Rome
Once I crawled out, I strolled the lively avenues of my city and explored stalls, alehouses, flower fields, and seafood collectors — the experience was splendid to see all my hard work using an entirely new viewpoint. I detected a variety of intricacies I wouldn’t have spotted from the top-down view: Entryway ornaments, an ass transporting a floral pail, chickens running loose, people relaxing on their verandas… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the coloration on a post is quite interesting for those not residing in classical times.
More Than Just Walking
But there’s more to the first-person feature in Anno 117 aside from meandering through streets. I became extraordinarily excited upon discovering that I could not just look upon crop lands, but also step into them. And even though I thought interiors would be restricted, I could walk onto mud extraction sites, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building while lessons were in session, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the developers planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely meander across a cereal plantation, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and glance into any tiny hut as long as the door is absent.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
While I was completely ready to witness my city rendered using primitive rendering, besides some crude animations and the occasional civilian resting within a bench instead of on a bench, first-person mode looks much better than expected. The highly detailed textures (notably masonry elements) really have no business being this good for a title that remains primarily overhead. You may not see specific hair details, yet you will notice wall inscriptions, fiery particles from lamps, brick decoloration, eye details, and conifer needles. The night, featuring dancing flames and distant stellar illumination, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and proves significantly less intimidating versus the earlier title, now that the citizens don’t look like nightmarish entities now.
Testing and Personalization
Given the covert first-person feature has no guided tutorial, I decided to experiment a bit, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — with the latter allowing me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and revert. I then decided to hit various digit inputs and found I could alter my avatar's look. Yellow toga? Ruby clothing? Azure and violet outfit? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; if you activate the engage command, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. If you're interested, harming inhabitants is impossible (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Comedy and Population Encounters
However, I had no desire to injure my people, since they're incredibly amusing. Shortly after I activated first-person mode, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you offer additional fowl, your elder will punish you.” Understandable stance, father character. A pleasant regional Celt then started applauding my outstanding integration methods by describing it as “Ideal combination,” while some cranky old lady opted to menace me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Joy of Joyriding
Just as I assumed I’d discovered all there is to discover 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 can control each one as desired. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, moves quite quickly, though you shouldn’t imagine open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Combat Limitations
The only thing that disappointed me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was discovering my inability to participate in any fighting. Wearing my military outfit, I charged toward adversaries in the midst of battle and attempted to attack them, yet was completely overlooked. The close-up view was still rather spectacular, and seeing opponents retreat, their limbs waving wildly, felt highly gratifying, but it would’ve been cool to effectively strike targets via my incendiary bolts.
