Anno 117 Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Turns Out to Be a Breathtaking First-Person View.
Hold on — were you aware gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117 Pax Romana in first-person? If you're thinking that, you’re just as shocked as my own reaction when I discovered this hidden feature. Excuse me while step away from managing my empire, entrust it to a reliable subordinate, take a wagon, and go for a joyride around the classical city.
Unlocking the First-Person View
In its role as a city-builder, the game Anno 117 is normally experienced using a top-down camera. However, if you press a covert button sequence — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — you gain the ability to walk the empire as an ordinary Roman. Since a similar easter egg was part of Anno 1800, I was eager to experience it in Ubisoft's newest game, yet I had doubts it would work before I discovered myself stuck in a Celtic building (possibly an unexpected bug — this mode can be a little buggy at times).
Exploring the Roman Cityscape
After extracting myself, I walked the bustling streets across my settlement and visited shops, taverns, flower fields, and shellfish gatherers — it was glorious to observe the fruits of my labor from a brand-new perspective. I observed all kinds of details I might have missed from the top-down view: Entryway ornaments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, fowl roaming freely, folks chilling on their balconies… Merely examining the form of a ledge and the paint layers on a column proves fascinating to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
More Than Just Walking
But there’s more to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I became extraordinarily excited the moment I learned that not only could I observe crop lands, but also step into them. And even though I thought structures would be inaccessible, I was able to enter earthen quarries, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building while lessons were in session, and intrude into private gardens. Avoid attempting to open 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 look within any modest shelter when there's no doorway obstructing.
Appearance and Mood
Although I was fully prepared to witness my city rendered in PlayStation 1 graphics, apart from certain rough movements 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 (particularly rock faces) are unexpectedly excellent in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You might not observe any individual strands of hair, however, you can observe writings on surfaces, flames emitting from lights, discoloration of masonry, iris elements, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and stars shining in the distance, is especially atmospheric, and also a lot less scary compared to Anno 1800, given that the populace appears unlike terrifying apparitions these days.
Discovery and Modification
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective has no guided tutorial, I opted to try different commands, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and zoom in or out — the zoom function permitting me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and return. I subsequently tried pressing certain numeric keys and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Yellow toga? Crimson attire? Azure and violet outfit? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You may carry a sword and shield, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you activate the engage command, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. In case you’re wondering, eliminating citizens cannot be done (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
However, I had no desire to injure my people, since they're incredibly amusing. Shortly after I activated first-person mode, I overheard a father telling his child that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and should you provide another poultry, your grandmother will be furious.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then started applauding my outstanding integration methods by describing it as “Ideal combination,” whereas an irritable elderly woman decided to threaten me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Joy of Joyriding
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 clicked on a wagon and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even manually drawn vehicles; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey-powered transport, notably, moves quite quickly, though you shouldn’t imagine Grand Theft Auto-style mischief — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Fighting Restrictions
The single feature that frustrated me within the immersive perspective was finding out I couldn’t partake in combat situations. Wearing my military outfit, I approached opposing forces amidst fighting and attempted to attack them, yet was completely overlooked. The front-row seat remained quite impressive, and seeing opponents retreat, their appendages thrashing around, felt highly gratifying, yet it would have been exciting to successfully impact objects with my burning arrows.
