Anno 117's Pax Romana's Top Secret Reveals Itself as a Impressive First-Person Mode.
Hold on — were you aware you can play Anno 117 Pax Romana in first-person? If you're thinking that, you’re just as shocked as I was when I discovered this secret option. I must briefly leave my empire’s management, entrust it to a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and take a spin through Ancient Rome.
Activating the First-Person View
As a city-building game, the game Anno 117 is normally experienced from an overhead perspective. But, should you input a hidden code — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you gain the ability to walk the realm as a regular inhabitant. Since a similar easter egg was included in the earlier game Anno 1800, I felt excited to test it in the new release, yet I had doubts it would operate until I found myself stuck in a Celtic building (which probably wasn’t intended — this mode is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Discovering the Ancient Streets
Once I crawled out, I strolled the lively avenues through my metropolis and toured markets, breweries, floral patches, and shellfish gatherers — it was glorious to see all my hard work from a brand-new perspective. I detected numerous fine points that would escape notice from above: Entryway ornaments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, poultry scattering about, folks chilling on their balconies… Simply noticing the form of a ledge and the paint layers on a column proves fascinating to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
More Than Just Walking
However, there's additional content to the first-person feature in Anno 117 aside from meandering through streets. I felt particularly pleased when I found out that I could not just observe agricultural plots, but also access them. And despite my expectation structures would be inaccessible, I managed to access clay pits, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building during active classes, and invade personal courtyards. Don't bother with door access (not even the developers have the budget for that), but it’s entirely possible stroll around a barley farm, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and look within any modest shelter provided the entrance is missing.
Graphics and Ambiance
Although I was fully prepared to see my metropolis represented with outdated visual quality, besides some crude animations and periodic inhabitants sitting inside seating rather than on a bench, the immersive perspective seems considerably improved over predictions. The highly detailed textures (notably masonry elements) really have no business being this good within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You may not see any individual strands of hair, yet you will notice wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, discoloration of masonry, eye details, and pine tree leaves. The night, featuring dancing flames and stars shining in the distance, creates a particularly moody setting, and proves significantly less intimidating compared to Anno 1800, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble sleep paralysis demons anymore.
Discovery and Modification
Given the covert first-person feature lacks official documentation, I chose to test various actions, and promptly found the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — the zoom function permitting me to change from first-person to third-person mode and revert. I subsequently tried pressing various digit inputs and found I could alter my avatar's look. Amber garment? 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 activate the engage command, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. Should you be curious, harming inhabitants is impossible (not that I attempted, naturally).
Comedy and Population Encounters
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, 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 offer additional fowl, your gran will have your head.” Rightly so, Roman dad. One lovely local Celt then proceeded to praise my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” while some cranky old lady chose to intimidate me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
Just when I thought I uncovered all possible content in the title's first-person feature, I encountered the delight of riding in Ancient Rome. Completely unexpectedly, I clicked on a wagon and was promptly seated on the box. Cattle, asses, even manually drawn vehicles; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey-powered transport, notably, travels rather rapidly, though you shouldn’t imagine open-world vehicular chaos — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Combat Limitations
The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was learning about my exclusion from in any fighting. Wearing my military outfit, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and endeavored to damage them, only to be ignored completely. The proximate observation was still rather spectacular, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, proved very satisfying, though it might have been amazing to successfully impact objects with my burning arrows.
