Anno 117: Pax Romana's Hidden Gem Turns Out to Be a Breathtaking First-Person Mode.
Wait — did you know it's possible to experience Anno 117 Pax Romana using a first-person camera? Should that be your response, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction upon finding out this hidden feature. I must temporarily abandon managing my empire, leave it in a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and enjoy a ride across the Roman world.
Activating the First-Person Mode
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana usually operates using a top-down camera. Yet, when you press a covert button sequence — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — it becomes possible to roam the empire as an ordinary Roman. Since a similar easter egg was included in the earlier game Anno 1800, I looked forward to try it out in the latest installment, though I was uncertain it would work until I found myself stuck in a Celtic building (likely not meant to happen — this option is prone to glitches now and then).
Roaming the Streets of Rome
After extracting myself, I strolled the busy roads through my metropolis and explored markets, breweries, floral patches, and cockle pickers — the experience was splendid to see the fruits of my labor using an entirely new viewpoint. I detected all kinds of details I wouldn’t have spotted from the top-down view: Front door decorations, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, fowl roaming freely, citizens lounging on their terraces… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the coloration on a post becomes engaging to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
More Than Just Walking
However, there's additional content to Anno 117’s first-person mode aside from meandering through streets. I felt particularly pleased when I found out that not only could I look upon farming fields, but also step into them. And despite my expectation interiors would be restricted, I managed to access earthen quarries, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and intrude into private gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the creators allocated resources for that), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack when there's no doorway obstructing.
Appearance and Mood
Although I was fully prepared to see my metropolis represented using primitive rendering, besides some crude animations and the occasional civilian resting within a bench as opposed to atop a bench, first-person mode looks much better than expected. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) really have no business being this good for a title that remains primarily overhead. You may not see separate follicular elements, however, you can observe writings on surfaces, fiery particles from lamps, brick decoloration, pupils, and pine tree leaves. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and distant stellar illumination, creates a particularly moody setting, and feels much less frightening compared to Anno 1800, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble terrifying apparitions these days.
Testing and Personalization
Given the covert first-person feature doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I opted to try different commands, and immediately located the abilities to leap, run, and changing perspective — the last option enabling me to switch between first and third-person views and return. I then decided to hit some number buttons and learned I could modify my avatar's look. Golden robe? Ruby clothing? Blue and purple toga? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you hit the interaction button, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. If you're interested, it’s not possible to kill civilians (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, because they’re way too funny. Moments after I entered the first-person view, I overheard a father telling his child that he “Can’t have a pet fox and should you provide another poultry, your gran will have your head.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A friendly native Celtic person then started applauding my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” whereas an irritable elderly woman chose to intimidate me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Joy of Joyriding
Just when I thought I had found everything available in the title's first-person feature, I found the joys of joyriding across historical settings. 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, is pretty fast, although you shouldn't expect any GTA-like shenanigans — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Battle Constraints
The only thing that disappointed me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was discovering my inability to participate in any fighting. Equipped in warrior attire, I ran up to the enemy amidst fighting and attempted to attack them, but was entirely disregarded. The close-up view was nonetheless magnificent, and seeing opponents retreat, their appendages thrashing around, felt highly gratifying, though it might have been amazing to successfully impact objects using my fiery projectiles.
