Anno 117 Pax Romana's Hidden Gem Reveals Itself as a Impressive First-Person View.
Wait — did you know gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117 Pax Romana from a first-person viewpoint? If you're thinking that, you’re just as shocked as I was upon finding out this secret option. Allow me to step away from overseeing my civilization, entrust it to a trusted assistant, take a wagon, and take a spin across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person Feature
Being a city-building title, Anno 117 Pax Romana usually operates from an overhead perspective. Yet, when you press a covert button sequence — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you gain the ability to walk your domain as a common citizen. Given a comparable hidden feature was included in Anno 1800, I looked forward to experience it in Ubisoft's newest game, yet I had doubts it would function prior to being chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (which probably wasn’t intended — this feature can be prone to glitches now and then).
Roaming the Streets of Rome
Once I crawled out, I walked the lively avenues of my city and visited stalls, alehouses, floral patches, and seafood collectors — the experience was splendid to witness the fruits of my labor from a brand-new perspective. I observed a variety of intricacies that would escape notice from above: Entryway ornaments, an ass transporting a floral pail, fowl roaming freely, folks chilling on their balconies… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the paint layers on a column is quite interesting for those not residing in classical times.
Beyond Simple Strolling
But there’s more to Anno 117’s first-person mode than strolling along the road. I became extraordinarily excited the moment I learned that besides being able to look upon farming fields, but also step into them. And even though I thought structures would be inaccessible, I was able to enter mud extraction sites, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building while lessons were in session, and invade personal courtyards. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the developers have the budget for that), however, you can definitely stroll around a barley farm, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and glance into any tiny hut when there's no doorway obstructing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
Although I was fully prepared to observe my settlement depicted with outdated visual quality, excluding a few unpolished motions and the occasional civilian resting inside seating instead of on a bench, the immersive perspective seems much better than expected. The intricately designed surfaces (especially stone surfaces) shouldn't logically be this impressive in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You may not see any individual strands of hair, but you will see writings on surfaces, flames emitting from lights, discoloration of masonry, eye details, and conifer needles. The night, featuring dancing flames and celestial bodies twinkling afar, 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.
Discovery and Modification
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I chose to test various actions, and promptly found the abilities to leap, run, and changing perspective — with the latter allowing me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and revert. I then experimented with some number buttons and found I could alter my character’s appearance. Amber garment? Red toga? Blue and purple toga? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you activate the engage command, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. In case you’re wondering, harming inhabitants is impossible (not that I attempted, naturally).
Comedy and Population Encounters
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, because they’re way too funny. Moments after I entered first-person mode, I heard a parent advising their offspring that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you feed it one more chicken, your grandmother will be furious.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then began complimenting my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female decided to threaten me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Joy of Joyriding
Just as I assumed I uncovered all possible content in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I encountered the delight of riding across historical settings. Totally unintentionally, I interacted with a cart and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even human-pulled carts; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey cart, in particular, travels rather rapidly, though you shouldn’t imagine any GTA-like shenanigans — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Battle Constraints
The sole aspect that let me down regarding the first-person view was learning about my exclusion from in combat situations. Equipped in warrior attire, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and endeavored to damage them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view remained quite impressive, and seeing opponents retreat, their appendages thrashing around, proved very satisfying, though it might have been amazing to successfully impact objects via my incendiary bolts.
