Anno 117: Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Turns Out to Be a Impressive First-Person View.
Surprisingly — did you realize gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117: Pax Romana from a first-person viewpoint? Should that be your response, you’re just as shocked as my own reaction the moment I learned this hidden feature. I must temporarily abandon managing my empire, entrust it to a trusted assistant, take a wagon, and take a spin around the classical city.
How to Access the First-Person Mode
In its role as a city-builder, Anno 117 Pax Romana is typically played from a bird's-eye view. However, if you enter a secret combination — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or else “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. Given a comparable hidden feature was included in the earlier game Anno 1800, I felt excited to try it out in Ubisoft's newest game, though I was uncertain it would operate until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (which probably wasn’t intended — this option tends to be a little buggy at times).
Exploring the Streets of Rome
After extracting myself, I strolled the busy roads of my city and explored stalls, alehouses, floral patches, and cockle pickers — it was glorious to see the fruits of my labor from a brand-new perspective. I observed a variety of intricacies that would escape notice from the top-down view: Front door decorations, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, chickens running loose, folks chilling on their balconies… Even just observing the design of a windowsill and the coating on a pillar becomes engaging for those not residing in classical times.
More Than Just Walking
But there’s more to the game's immersive perspective aside from meandering through streets. I felt particularly pleased the moment I learned that besides being able to look upon agricultural plots, but also access them. And even though I thought the building models would be off-limits, I managed to access earthen quarries, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building while lessons were in session, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the developers planned for that functionality), but it’s entirely possible meander across a cereal plantation, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack as long as the door is absent.
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 in a bench instead of on a bench, the first-person view appears far superior to anticipations. The intricately designed surfaces (notably masonry elements) are unexpectedly excellent within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You might not observe separate follicular elements, but you will see wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, discoloration of masonry, iris elements, and conifer needles. The night, featuring dancing flames and stars shining in the distance, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and proves significantly less intimidating versus the earlier title, given that the populace appears unlike sleep paralysis demons anymore.
Testing and Personalization
Given the covert first-person feature doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I chose to test various actions, and promptly found the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — the zoom function permitting me to change from first-person to third-person mode and revert. I then decided to hit some number buttons and discovered that I could change my character’s appearance. Yellow toga? Red toga? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You can wield a blade and protection, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you hit the interaction button, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. Should you be curious, it’s not possible to kill civilians (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, because they’re way too funny. Moments after I entered first-person mode, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you offer additional fowl, your grandmother will be furious.” Understandable stance, father character. A pleasant regional Celt then began complimenting my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” while some cranky old lady chose to intimidate me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Joy of Joyriding
At the moment I believed I uncovered all possible content in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I experienced the pleasure of driving in Ancient Rome. Completely unexpectedly, I clicked on a wagon and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even people-powered transports; you can control each one as desired. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, travels rather rapidly, though you shouldn’t imagine open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Combat Limitations
The single feature that frustrated me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was discovering my inability to participate in combat situations. Sporting my soldier fit, I charged toward adversaries amidst fighting and attempted to attack them, yet was completely overlooked. The close-up view was nonetheless magnificent, and observing foes flee, their limbs waving wildly, felt highly gratifying, but it would’ve been cool to successfully impact objects using my fiery projectiles.
