Anno 117 Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Turns Out to Be a Stunning First-Person Perspective.

Surprisingly — did you realize it's possible to experience the game Anno 117 from a first-person viewpoint? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as I was the moment I learned this secret option. Excuse me while briefly leave overseeing my civilization, delegate it to a reliable subordinate, borrow a cart, and go for a joyride across the Roman world.

How to Access the First-Person View

As a city-building game, Anno 117 Pax Romana is typically played from a bird's-eye view. However, if you input a hidden code — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — it becomes possible to roam the empire as an ordinary Roman. Since a similar easter egg was included in the previous Anno title, I felt excited to test it in the latest installment, but I wasn’t sure it would function prior to being stuck in a Celtic building (which probably wasn’t intended — this feature is somewhat unstable occasionally).

Discovering the Streets of Rome

After extracting myself, I wandered the bustling streets through my metropolis and visited shops, taverns, blossom gardens, and seafood collectors — the experience was splendid to witness the fruits of my labor using an entirely new viewpoint. I noticed a variety of intricacies I might have missed from the top-down view: Entryway ornaments, an ass transporting a floral pail, poultry scattering about, citizens lounging on their terraces… Even just observing the design of a windowsill and the paint layers on a column proves fascinating for those not residing in classical times.

Beyond Simple Strolling

However, there's additional content to the first-person feature in Anno 117 beyond simply walking the paths. I was especially delighted the moment I learned that I could not just view crop lands, but also access them. And although I’d assumed interiors would be restricted, I managed to access earthen quarries, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and intrude into private gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the studio have the budget for that), but it’s entirely possible wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and glance into any tiny hut as long as the door is absent.

Graphics and Ambiance

Even though I expected to observe my settlement depicted using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and the occasional civilian resting in a bench rather than on a bench, the first-person view appears far superior to anticipations. The highly detailed textures (notably masonry elements) really have no business being this good within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You won't necessarily notice separate follicular elements, yet you will notice wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, fading on bricks, iris elements, and evergreen foliage. Evening, with glowing light sources and distant stellar illumination, creates a particularly moody setting, and also a lot less scary relative to the previous game, now that the citizens don’t look like nightmarish entities anymore.

Experimentation and Customization

Because the game's hidden immersive perspective has no guided tutorial, I decided to experiment a bit, and promptly found the options to jump, sprint, and zoom in or out — the last option enabling me to change from first-person to third-person mode and revert. I subsequently tried pressing some number buttons and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Yellow toga? Crimson attire? Blue and purple toga? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You may carry a sword and shield, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you activate the engage command, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. If you're interested, it’s not possible to kill civilians (though I didn't test this, obviously).

Humor and Citizen Interactions

But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, since they're incredibly amusing. Moments after I entered the first-person view, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you feed it one more chicken, your grandmother will be furious.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A pleasant regional Celt then proceeded to praise my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female opted to menace me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”

The Thrill of Transportation

Just as I assumed I uncovered all possible content in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I encountered the delight of riding in Ancient Rome. Entirely by accident, I clicked on a wagon and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Bovines, equines, even manually drawn vehicles; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey-powered transport, notably, is pretty fast, although you shouldn't expect open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (once more, not admitting any attempts).

Combat Limitations

The sole aspect that let me down in Anno 117’s first-person mode was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Equipped in warrior attire, I charged toward adversaries in the midst of battle and endeavored to damage them, yet was completely overlooked. The front-row seat remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their appendages thrashing around, proved very satisfying, but it would’ve been cool to successfully impact objects with my burning arrows.

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