Anno 117's Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Turns Out to Be a Breathtaking First-Person Mode.
Hold on — were you aware you can play Anno 117 Pax Romana from a first-person viewpoint? Should that be your response, you’re just as shocked as I was when I discovered this secret option. Allow me to briefly leave overseeing my civilization, leave it in a reliable subordinate, take a wagon, and take a spin through Ancient Rome.
Activating the First-Person Feature
Being a city-building title, Anno 117 Pax Romana usually operates from a bird's-eye view. However, if you input a hidden code — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you gain the ability to walk the empire as an ordinary Roman. Since a similar easter egg appeared in the earlier game Anno 1800, I felt excited to test it in Ubisoft's newest game, yet I had doubts it would function until I found myself stuck in a Celtic building (likely not meant to happen — this option tends to be a little buggy at times).
Discovering the Streets of Rome
After extracting myself, I strolled the bustling streets across my settlement and visited shops, taverns, floral patches, and cockle pickers — it felt magnificent to observe my diligent efforts using an entirely new viewpoint. I detected a variety of intricacies I might have missed from above: Doorway embellishments, an ass transporting a floral pail, chickens running loose, people relaxing on their verandas… Simply noticing the shape of a window sill and the coloration on a post becomes engaging for those not residing in classical times.
More Than Just Walking
However, there's additional content to the first-person feature in Anno 117 beyond simply walking the paths. I felt particularly pleased the moment I learned that not only could I observe agricultural plots, but also enter them. And even though I thought interiors would be restricted, I could walk onto clay pits, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and intrude into private gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the studio planned for that functionality), yet it's completely feasible stroll around a barley farm, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and glance into any tiny hut as long as the door is absent.
Graphics and Ambiance
Even though I expected to see my metropolis represented in PlayStation 1 graphics, besides some crude animations and sometimes citizens positioned in a bench as opposed to atop a bench, the first-person view appears considerably improved over predictions. The highly detailed textures (particularly rock faces) shouldn't logically be this impressive in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You might not observe specific hair details, however, you can observe engravings on walls, flames emitting from lights, discoloration of masonry, eye details, and evergreen foliage. The night, featuring dancing flames and celestial bodies twinkling afar, is especially atmospheric, and also a lot less scary versus the earlier title, now that the citizens don’t look like terrifying apparitions anymore.
Discovery and Modification
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I chose to test various actions, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and changing perspective — with the latter allowing me to switch between first and third-person views and back. I then decided to hit some number buttons and discovered that I could change my avatar's look. Yellow toga? Crimson attire? Azure and violet outfit? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You may carry a sword and shield, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you hit the interaction button, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. In case you’re wondering, harming inhabitants is impossible (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Comedy and Population Encounters
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, since they're incredibly amusing. Only seconds after I landed the first-person view, 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.” Understandable stance, father character. One lovely local Celt then began complimenting my outstanding integration methods by describing it as “Ideal combination,” whereas an irritable elderly woman chose to intimidate me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just when I thought I had found everything available in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving across historical settings. Entirely by accident, I interacted with a cart and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Cattle, asses, even people-powered transports; you can drive them all at your leisure. 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 (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Combat Limitations
The single feature that frustrated me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I charged toward adversaries during active combat and tried to harm them, but was entirely disregarded. The proximate observation was nonetheless magnificent, and seeing opponents retreat, their limbs waving wildly, seemed enormously rewarding, yet it would have been exciting to effectively strike targets using my fiery projectiles.