Anno 117 Pax Romana's Hidden Gem Reveals Itself as a Breathtaking First-Person Perspective.
Hold on — were you aware gamers have the option to enjoy the game Anno 117 in first-person? If that’s your reaction, your surprise matches as I was the moment I learned this secret option. I must temporarily abandon my empire’s management, entrust it to a reliable subordinate, take a wagon, and take a spin across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person View
Being a city-building title, Anno 117 Pax Romana usually operates from an overhead perspective. Yet, when you press a covert button sequence — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you gain the ability to walk the empire as an ordinary Roman. Because an analogous secret was part of the earlier game Anno 1800, I felt excited to test it in the new release, but I wasn’t sure it would work before I discovered myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (likely not meant to happen — this feature is a little buggy at times).
Exploring the Streets of Rome
Upon freeing myself, I wandered the busy roads across my settlement and visited stalls, alehouses, blossom gardens, and seafood collectors — it felt magnificent to see the fruits of my labor through a fresh lens. I detected a variety of intricacies I might have missed from the top-down view: Entryway ornaments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, fowl roaming freely, folks chilling on their balconies… Simply noticing the shape of a window sill and the coating on a pillar is quite interesting for those not residing in classical times.
Further Than Mere Wandering
Yet, the experience extends to Anno 117’s first-person mode than strolling along the road. I became extraordinarily excited the moment I learned that I could not just look upon crop lands, but also enter them. And even though I thought structures would be inaccessible, I was able to enter mud extraction sites, investigate a respected schoolhouse while lessons were in session, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the developers planned for that functionality), yet it's completely feasible wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack as long as the door is absent.
Graphics and Ambiance
Although I was fully prepared to witness my city rendered in PlayStation 1 graphics, apart from certain rough movements and periodic inhabitants sitting inside seating rather than on a bench, the first-person view appears far superior to anticipations. The meticulously crafted materials (especially stone surfaces) are unexpectedly excellent in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You won't necessarily notice specific hair details, however, you can observe writings on surfaces, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, eye details, and pine tree leaves. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and celestial bodies twinkling afar, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary relative to the previous game, now that the citizens don’t look like nightmarish entities these days.
Experimentation and Customization
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode has no guided tutorial, I chose to test various actions, and immediately located the options to jump, sprint, and zoom in or out — with the latter allowing me to switch between first and third-person views and return. I subsequently tried pressing some number buttons and learned I could modify my avatar's look. Golden robe? Red toga? Azure and violet outfit? 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 shoot flaming projectiles upward. In case you’re wondering, harming inhabitants is impossible (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
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 gran will have your head.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A pleasant regional Celt then proceeded to praise my excellent cross-cultural strategies by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female chose to intimidate me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
Just as I assumed I had found everything available in the title's first-person feature, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Entirely by accident, I clicked on a wagon and was promptly seated on the box. Cattle, asses, even manually drawn vehicles; you can control each one as desired. The donkey cart, in particular, moves quite quickly, but don't anticipate open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Fighting Restrictions
The only thing that disappointed me within the immersive perspective was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Sporting my soldier fit, I ran up to the enemy in the midst of battle and attempted to attack them, yet was completely overlooked. The front-row seat was still rather spectacular, and watching the enemy run, their arms flailing about, proved very satisfying, though it might have been amazing to effectively strike targets with my burning arrows.
