Anno 117: Pax Romana's Top Secret Turns Out to Be a Impressive First-Person Perspective.
Wait — did you know you can play the game Anno 117 from a first-person viewpoint? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction the moment I learned this hidden feature. Allow me to temporarily abandon my empire’s management, leave it in a trusted assistant, take a wagon, and take a spin across the Roman world.
Unlocking the First-Person View
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana is typically played from an overhead perspective. Yet, when you input a hidden code — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — it becomes possible to roam the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature was part of the previous Anno title, I was eager to try it out in the new release, but I wasn’t sure it would function until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (possibly an unexpected bug — this option is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Exploring the Ancient Streets
Upon freeing myself, I strolled the lively avenues of my city and explored shops, taverns, flower fields, and shellfish gatherers — it was glorious to see the fruits of my labor using an entirely new viewpoint. I noticed all kinds of details I might have missed from the top-down view: Front door decorations, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, fowl roaming freely, people relaxing on their verandas… Even just observing the design of a windowsill and the coloration on a post proves fascinating to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
More Than Just Walking
However, there's additional content to Anno 117’s first-person mode beyond simply walking the paths. I was especially delighted when I found out that besides being able to observe agricultural plots, but also step into them. And despite my expectation interiors would be restricted, I managed to access clay pits, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and intrude into private gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the studio have the budget for that), yet it's completely feasible meander across a cereal plantation, observe people digging and transporting bags, and look within any modest shelter as long as the door is absent.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
While I was completely ready to witness my city rendered using primitive rendering, besides some crude animations and periodic inhabitants sitting within a bench instead of on a bench, first-person mode looks considerably improved over predictions. 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, but you will see engravings on walls, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, eye details, and conifer needles. The night, featuring dancing flames and stars shining in the distance, creates a particularly moody setting, and also a lot less scary compared to Anno 1800, given that the populace appears unlike terrifying apparitions these days.
Experimentation and Customization
Given the covert first-person feature has no guided tutorial, I opted to try different commands, and immediately located the functions for jumping, dashing, and zoom in or out — with the latter allowing me to change from first-person to third-person mode and revert. I subsequently tried pressing some number buttons and discovered that I could change my character’s appearance. Amber garment? Red toga? Azure and violet outfit? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You can wield a blade and protection, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; when you press the action key, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. In case you’re wondering, it’s not possible to kill civilians (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
However, I had no desire to injure my people, as they're remarkably entertaining. Only seconds after I landed first-person mode, I heard a parent advising their offspring that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you feed it one more chicken, your grandmother will be furious.” Understandable stance, father character. One lovely local Celt then began complimenting my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” while some cranky old lady 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 uncovered all possible content within the game's immersive perspective, I experienced the pleasure of driving across historical settings. Entirely by accident, I clicked on a wagon and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Bovines, equines, even human-pulled carts; you can control each one as desired. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, travels rather rapidly, although you shouldn't expect open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Fighting Restrictions
The single feature that frustrated me regarding the first-person view was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Sporting my soldier fit, I approached opposing forces during active combat and attempted to attack them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat remained quite impressive, and observing foes flee, their limbs waving wildly, seemed enormously rewarding, but it would’ve been cool to effectively strike targets via my incendiary bolts.
