Anno 117's Pax Romana's Top Secret Reveals Itself as a Breathtaking First-Person Perspective.
Surprisingly — did you realize gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117 Pax Romana using a first-person camera? Should that be your response, your surprise matches as I was the moment I learned this secret option. Allow me to briefly leave overseeing my civilization, entrust it to a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and take a spin around the classical city.
How to Access the First-Person Feature
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana is normally experienced from an overhead perspective. However, if you input a hidden code — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you can explore the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature appeared in Anno 1800, I felt excited to experience it in Ubisoft's newest game, yet I had doubts it would work prior to being stuck in a Celtic building (possibly an unexpected bug — this feature is prone to glitches now and then).
Discovering the Streets of Rome
After extracting myself, I walked the busy roads through my metropolis and toured stalls, alehouses, blossom gardens, and shellfish gatherers — it was glorious to observe my diligent efforts using an entirely new viewpoint. I detected all kinds of details that would escape notice when viewing from overhead: Doorway embellishments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, chickens running loose, citizens lounging on their terraces… Even just observing the shape of a window sill and the paint layers on a column is quite interesting for those not residing in classical times.
Beyond Simple Strolling
Yet, the experience extends to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I felt particularly pleased when I found out that besides being able to view agricultural plots, but also step into them. And even though I thought the building models would be off-limits, I was able to enter earthen quarries, tour an esteemed educational structure while lessons were in session, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the studio allocated resources for that), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and take a peek inside any small shack as long as the door is absent.
Appearance and Mood
Even though I expected to witness my city rendered with outdated visual quality, apart from certain rough movements and sometimes citizens positioned in a bench as opposed to atop a bench, the immersive perspective seems far superior to anticipations. The highly detailed textures (notably masonry elements) are unexpectedly excellent for a title that remains primarily overhead. You won't necessarily notice any individual strands of hair, but you will see engravings on walls, sparks flying from torches, brick decoloration, iris elements, and pine tree leaves. Evening, with glowing light sources and celestial bodies twinkling afar, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary compared to Anno 1800, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble terrifying apparitions anymore.
Testing and Personalization
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode has no guided tutorial, I chose to test various actions, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and changing perspective — with the latter allowing me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and return. I subsequently tried pressing some number buttons and discovered that I could change my character’s appearance. Amber garment? Red toga? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You may carry a sword and shield, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you hit the interaction button, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. In case you’re wondering, eliminating citizens cannot be done (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. Moments after I entered 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. A pleasant regional Celt then began complimenting my outstanding integration methods by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female opted to menace me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
At the moment I believed I uncovered all possible content in the title's first-person feature, I encountered the delight of riding through classical settlements. Totally unintentionally, I selected a carriage and quickly occupied the transport. Bovines, equines, even manually drawn vehicles; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey cart, in particular, is pretty fast, but don't anticipate any GTA-like shenanigans — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Battle Constraints
The single feature that frustrated me in Anno 117’s first-person mode 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, yet was completely overlooked. The front-row seat was nonetheless magnificent, and observing foes flee, their limbs waving wildly, seemed enormously rewarding, but it would’ve been cool to successfully impact objects via my incendiary bolts.
