Anno 117: Pax Romana's Hidden Gem Turns Out to Be a Breathtaking First-Person Perspective.
Surprisingly — did you realize you can play the game Anno 117 using a first-person camera? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction when I discovered this hidden feature. Excuse me while step away from managing my empire, leave it in a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and go for a joyride around the classical city.
How to Access the First-Person Feature
In its role as a city-builder, the game Anno 117 is normally experienced from an overhead perspective. However, if you enter a secret combination — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — you gain the ability to walk your domain as a common citizen. Given a comparable hidden feature was included in Anno 1800, I was eager to try it out in the new release, yet I had doubts it would work prior to being chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (likely not meant to happen — this mode is prone to glitches now and then).
Roaming the Streets of Rome
After extracting myself, I wandered the lively avenues through my metropolis and visited markets, breweries, flower fields, and shellfish gatherers — it felt magnificent to observe all my hard work through a fresh lens. I noticed a variety of intricacies that would escape notice from above: Entryway ornaments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, poultry scattering about, people relaxing on their verandas… Simply noticing the form of a ledge and the coating on a pillar is quite interesting to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
Beyond Simple Strolling
However, there's additional content to Anno 117’s first-person mode aside from meandering through streets. I was especially delighted when I found out that I could not just view farming fields, but also step into them. And despite my expectation structures would be inaccessible, I managed to access clay pits, investigate a respected schoolhouse during active classes, and intrude into private gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the developers have the budget for that), but it’s entirely possible stroll around a barley farm, observe people digging and transporting bags, and take a peek inside any small shack as long as the door is absent.
Appearance and Mood
Even though I expected to see my metropolis represented using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and sometimes citizens positioned inside seating instead of on a bench, the first-person view appears much better than expected. The intricately designed surfaces (particularly rock faces) really have no business being this good for a title that remains primarily overhead. You won't necessarily notice any individual strands of hair, yet you will notice writings on surfaces, fiery particles from lamps, discoloration of masonry, eye details, and conifer needles. The night, featuring dancing flames and stars shining in the distance, is especially atmospheric, and feels much less frightening compared to Anno 1800, now that the citizens don’t look like terrifying apparitions anymore.
Testing and Personalization
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I opted to try different commands, and quickly discovered the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — the last option enabling me to switch between first and third-person views and back. I then decided to hit some number buttons and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Amber garment? Ruby clothing? Blue and purple toga? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You can wield a blade and protection, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you activate the engage command, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. In case you’re wondering, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I attempted, naturally).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, since they're incredibly amusing. Only seconds after I landed first-person mode, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “Owning a fox is prohibited and should you provide another poultry, your elder will punish you.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A pleasant regional Celt then proceeded to praise my excellent cross-cultural strategies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female decided to threaten me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just when I thought I had found everything available in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Totally unintentionally, I selected a carriage and was promptly seated on the box. Bovines, equines, even human-pulled carts; you can control each one as desired. The donkey-powered transport, notably, moves quite quickly, but don't anticipate any GTA-like shenanigans — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Battle Constraints
The only thing that disappointed me within the immersive perspective was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Sporting my soldier fit, I ran up to the enemy in the midst of battle and tried to harm them, yet was completely overlooked. The close-up view was still rather spectacular, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, proved very satisfying, though it might have been amazing to effectively strike targets using my fiery projectiles.
