🔗 Share this article

Hold on — were you aware gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117 Pax Romana using a first-person camera? If that’s your reaction, your surprise matches as my own reaction the moment I learned this secret option. Allow me to step away from my empire’s management, entrust it to a trusted assistant, commandere a carriage, and enjoy a ride around the classical city.

Activating the First-Person View

Being a city-building title, Anno 117 Pax Romana is typically played from a bird's-eye view. Yet, when you input a hidden code — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you can explore the realm as a regular inhabitant. Given a comparable hidden feature appeared in the previous Anno title, I looked forward to try it out in Ubisoft's newest game, though I was uncertain it would function prior to being submerged in a structural glitch (which probably wasn’t intended — this feature is somewhat unstable occasionally).

Exploring the Roman Cityscape

Once I crawled out, I walked the busy roads through my metropolis and visited shops, taverns, flower fields, and seafood collectors — the experience was splendid to see my diligent efforts using an entirely new viewpoint. I observed a variety of intricacies I might have missed when viewing from overhead: Doorway embellishments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, chickens running loose, folks chilling on their balconies… Even just observing 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 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 despite my expectation interiors would be restricted, I was able to enter mud extraction sites, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and invade personal courtyards. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the developers allocated resources for that), yet it's completely feasible meander across a cereal plantation, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and glance into any tiny hut when there's no doorway obstructing.

Graphics and Ambiance

While I was completely ready to witness my city rendered in PlayStation 1 graphics, besides some crude animations and the occasional civilian resting inside seating rather than on a bench, the first-person view appears far superior to anticipations. The highly detailed textures (especially stone surfaces) shouldn't logically be this impressive for a title that remains primarily overhead. You might not observe any individual strands of hair, yet you will notice engravings on walls, fiery particles from lamps, brick decoloration, iris elements, and pine tree leaves. Evening, with glowing light sources and distant stellar illumination, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and feels much less frightening versus the earlier title, given that the populace appears unlike terrifying apparitions anymore.

Testing and Personalization

Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode lacks official documentation, I chose to test various actions, and promptly found the functions for jumping, dashing, and changing perspective — with the latter allowing me to switch between first and third-person views and revert. I then decided to hit certain numeric keys and discovered that I could change my avatar's look. Yellow toga? Crimson attire? Blue and purple toga? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; when you press the action key, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. If you're interested, harming inhabitants is impossible (not that I’ve tried, of course).

Comedy and Population Encounters

However, I had no desire to injure my people, as they're remarkably entertaining. Only seconds after I landed the first-person view, I heard a parent advising their offspring that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you feed it one more chicken, 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: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”

The Joy of Joyriding

At the moment I believed I’d discovered all there is to discover in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Totally unintentionally, I interacted with a cart and was promptly seated on the box. Oxen, donkeys, even human-pulled carts; you may operate any of them freely. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, is pretty fast, although you shouldn't expect any GTA-like shenanigans — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (once more, not admitting any attempts).

Combat Limitations

The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was finding out I couldn’t partake in combat situations. Wearing my military outfit, I approached opposing forces during active combat and tried to harm them, but was entirely disregarded. The proximate observation was still rather spectacular, and watching the enemy run, their appendages thrashing around, seemed enormously rewarding, though it might have been amazing to effectively strike targets using my fiery projectiles.

{Conclusion: More to Discover|Final Thoughts: Additional Exploration