Anno 117 Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Reveals Itself as a Impressive First-Person Perspective.
Wait — did you know you can play Anno 117 Pax Romana using a first-person camera? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as I was when I discovered this secret option. Allow me to temporarily abandon managing my empire, leave it in a reliable subordinate, borrow a cart, and go for a joyride through Ancient Rome.
Activating the First-Person Mode
Being a city-building title, Anno 117: Pax Romana is typically played using a top-down camera. However, if 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” on console — it becomes possible to roam the realm as a regular inhabitant. Because an analogous secret appeared in the previous Anno title, I looked forward to experience it in the new release, though I was uncertain it would work prior to being stuck in a Celtic building (likely not meant to happen — this mode can be a little buggy at times).
Exploring the Streets of Rome
After extracting myself, I wandered the bustling streets through my metropolis and toured markets, breweries, flower fields, and shellfish gatherers — it felt magnificent to observe my diligent efforts from a brand-new perspective. I detected all kinds of details I might have missed from the top-down view: Entryway ornaments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, poultry scattering about, citizens lounging on their terraces… Simply noticing the shape of a window sill and the coloration on a post becomes engaging for those not residing in classical times.
Further Than Mere Wandering
Yet, the experience extends to the game's immersive perspective aside from meandering through streets. I felt particularly pleased upon discovering that besides being able to observe crop lands, but also enter them. And even though I thought interiors would be restricted, I managed to access mud extraction sites, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building during active classes, and invade personal courtyards. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the developers planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, observe people digging and transporting bags, and look within any modest shelter when there's no doorway obstructing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
Even though I expected to witness my city rendered with outdated visual quality, besides some crude animations and the occasional civilian resting within a bench instead of on a bench, the immersive perspective seems considerably improved over predictions. The intricately designed surfaces (especially stone surfaces) really have no business being this good in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You might not observe specific hair details, yet you will notice engravings on walls, fiery particles from lamps, brick decoloration, iris elements, and evergreen foliage. The night, featuring dancing flames and celestial bodies twinkling afar, is especially atmospheric, and also a lot less scary versus the earlier title, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble sleep paralysis demons now.
Discovery and Modification
Given the covert first-person feature doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I opted to try different commands, and quickly discovered the options to jump, sprint, and changing perspective — the last option enabling me to change from first-person to third-person mode and back. I then decided to hit various digit inputs and learned I could modify my avatar's look. Amber garment? Ruby clothing? Blue and purple toga? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You can wield a blade and protection, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you activate the engage command, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. If you're interested, harming inhabitants is impossible (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, since they're incredibly amusing. Shortly after I activated the first-person view, I heard a parent advising their offspring that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and should you provide another poultry, your elder will punish you.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then started applauding my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” whereas an irritable elderly woman decided to threaten me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
At the moment I believed I’d discovered all there is to discover in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I experienced the pleasure of driving in Ancient Rome. Completely unexpectedly, I selected a carriage and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even human-pulled carts; you may operate any of them freely. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, is pretty fast, though you shouldn’t imagine open-world vehicular chaos — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Fighting Restrictions
The single feature that frustrated me within the immersive perspective was learning about my exclusion from in combat situations. Sporting my soldier fit, I charged toward adversaries amidst fighting and attempted to attack them, only to be ignored completely. The front-row seat was still rather spectacular, and seeing opponents retreat, their arms flailing about, felt highly gratifying, but it would’ve been cool to effectively strike targets using my fiery projectiles.
