Anno 117's Pax Romana's Hidden Gem Reveals Itself as a Impressive First-Person View.
Wait — did you know you can play Anno 117 Pax Romana in first-person? Should that be your response, your surprise matches compared to my initial response upon finding out this concealed mode. Allow me to briefly leave my empire’s management, leave it in a trusted assistant, take a wagon, 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. Yet, when you enter a secret combination — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or else “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. Since a similar easter egg was included in the earlier game Anno 1800, I was eager to test it in Ubisoft's newest game, though I was uncertain it would operate before I discovered myself stuck in a Celtic building (possibly an unexpected bug — this mode is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Roaming the Roman Cityscape
Upon freeing myself, I wandered the busy roads through my metropolis and toured stalls, alehouses, floral patches, and shellfish gatherers — it felt magnificent to see the fruits of my labor through a fresh lens. I noticed a variety of intricacies I wouldn’t have spotted from the top-down view: Entryway ornaments, an ass transporting a floral pail, chickens running loose, folks chilling on their balconies… Simply noticing the design of a windowsill and the coating on a pillar proves fascinating for those not residing in classical times.
More Than Just Walking
Yet, the experience extends to the game's immersive perspective beyond simply walking the paths. I felt particularly pleased when I found out that besides being able to look upon crop lands, but also step into them. And despite my expectation interiors would be restricted, I was able to enter earthen quarries, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building during active classes, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the developers planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack as long as the door is absent.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
Even though I expected to see my metropolis represented in PlayStation 1 graphics, excluding a few unpolished motions and periodic inhabitants sitting in a bench instead of on a bench, the first-person view appears much better than expected. The highly detailed textures (particularly rock faces) are unexpectedly excellent within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You may not see specific hair details, yet you will notice wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, fading on bricks, iris elements, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and stars shining in the distance, is especially atmospheric, and also a lot less scary versus the earlier title, now that the citizens don’t look like sleep paralysis demons now.
Experimentation and Customization
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode has no guided tutorial, I opted to try different commands, and promptly found the options to jump, sprint, and changing perspective — the zoom function permitting me to change from first-person to third-person mode and return. I subsequently tried pressing some number buttons and found I could alter my avatar's look. Amber garment? Red toga? Azure and violet outfit? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You can wield a blade and protection, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; when you press the action key, 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
However, I had no desire to injure my people, because they’re way too funny. Moments after I entered first-person mode, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and should you provide another poultry, your elder will punish you.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A friendly native Celtic person then proceeded to praise my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” while some cranky old lady opted to menace me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
Just when I thought I had found everything available within the game's immersive perspective, I found the joys of joyriding in Ancient Rome. Completely unexpectedly, I selected a carriage and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even people-powered transports; you can drive them all at your leisure. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, is pretty fast, but don't anticipate open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Fighting Restrictions
The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was finding out I couldn’t partake in battle encounters. Sporting my soldier fit, I charged toward adversaries amidst fighting and tried to harm them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat was nonetheless magnificent, and observing foes flee, their limbs waving wildly, felt highly gratifying, though it might have been amazing to actually hit something via my incendiary bolts.
