Anno 117 Pax Romana's Top Secret Turns Out to Be a Stunning First-Person Perspective.
Wait — did you know gamers have the option to enjoy the game Anno 117 in first-person? Should that be your response, you feel equally astonished compared to my initial response when I discovered this hidden feature. I must step away from my empire’s management, delegate it to a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and enjoy a ride across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person Mode
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana usually operates using a top-down camera. However, if you enter a secret combination — including “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 included in the earlier game Anno 1800, I felt excited to experience it in the new release, but I wasn’t sure it would operate until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (which probably wasn’t intended — this option can be somewhat unstable occasionally).
Roaming the Ancient Streets
After extracting myself, I walked the busy roads through my metropolis and visited shops, taverns, flower fields, and cockle pickers — it was glorious to see my diligent efforts from a brand-new perspective. I detected numerous fine points that would escape notice from above: Front door decorations, an ass transporting a floral pail, chickens running loose, folks chilling on their balconies… Merely examining the form of a ledge and the coating on a pillar becomes engaging to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Beyond Simple Strolling
But there’s more to Anno 117’s first-person mode aside from meandering through streets. I was especially delighted the moment I learned that I could not just view agricultural plots, but also step into them. And even though I thought the building models would be off-limits, I was able to enter clay pits, investigate a respected schoolhouse while lessons were in session, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the creators planned for that functionality), yet it's completely feasible wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, 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Although I was fully prepared to witness my city rendered with outdated visual quality, besides some crude animations and sometimes citizens positioned within a bench instead of on a bench, first-person mode looks much better than expected. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) are unexpectedly excellent in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You might not observe specific hair details, yet you will notice wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, discoloration of masonry, iris elements, and pine tree leaves. Evening, with glowing light sources and celestial bodies twinkling afar, is especially atmospheric, and proves significantly less intimidating relative to the previous game, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble sleep paralysis demons now.
Discovery and Modification
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective has no guided tutorial, I opted to try different commands, and promptly found the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — the zoom function permitting me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and return. I then decided to hit certain numeric keys and discovered that I could change my avatar's look. Golden robe? Crimson attire? Blue and purple toga? 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 launch incendiary bolts heavenward. If you're interested, it’s not possible to kill civilians (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
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 “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you offer additional fowl, your grandmother will be furious.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A pleasant regional Celt then proceeded to praise my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” whereas an irritable elderly woman opted to menace me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Joy of Joyriding
Just as I assumed I had found everything available within the game's immersive perspective, I encountered the delight of riding across historical settings. Completely unexpectedly, I selected a carriage and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Bovines, equines, even manually drawn vehicles; you can drive them all at your leisure. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, moves quite quickly, although you shouldn't expect open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Combat Limitations
The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was learning about my exclusion from in any fighting. Wearing my military outfit, I charged toward adversaries during active combat and tried to harm them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat remained quite impressive, and observing foes flee, their limbs waving wildly, seemed enormously rewarding, though it might have been amazing to successfully impact objects using my fiery projectiles.
