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 Anno 117: Pax Romana using a first-person camera? Should that be your response, you feel equally astonished compared to my initial response the moment I learned this secret option. Excuse me while briefly leave managing my empire, delegate it to a reliable subordinate, borrow a cart, and take a spin across the Roman world.
Unlocking the First-Person View
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana usually operates using a top-down camera. Yet, when you enter a secret combination — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you can explore the empire as an ordinary Roman. Because an analogous secret appeared in Anno 1800, I was eager to experience it in the latest installment, but I wasn’t sure it would operate prior to being chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (possibly an unexpected bug — this option can be a little buggy at times).
Exploring the Streets of Rome
Once I crawled out, I strolled the bustling streets across my settlement and toured stalls, alehouses, floral patches, and seafood collectors — it felt magnificent to witness my diligent efforts through a fresh lens. I observed all kinds of details that would escape notice from the top-down view: Doorway embellishments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, poultry scattering about, people relaxing on their verandas… Even just observing the design of a windowsill and the paint layers on a column proves fascinating to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Beyond Simple Strolling
However, there's additional content to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I felt particularly pleased the moment I learned that I could not just look upon crop lands, but also step into them. And despite my expectation structures would be inaccessible, I was able to enter earthen quarries, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the developers have the budget for that), yet it's completely feasible stroll around a barley farm, 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
Although I was fully prepared to see my metropolis represented using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and the occasional civilian resting inside seating rather than on a bench, the first-person view appears considerably improved over predictions. The meticulously crafted materials (especially stone surfaces) shouldn't logically be this impressive in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You won't necessarily notice any individual strands of hair, yet you will notice engravings on walls, sparks flying from torches, brick decoloration, eye details, and conifer needles. The night, featuring dancing flames and distant stellar illumination, creates a particularly moody setting, and also a lot less scary versus the earlier title, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble terrifying apparitions these days.
Experimentation and Customization
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode has no guided tutorial, I decided to experiment a bit, and immediately located the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — the last option enabling me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and return. I subsequently tried pressing various digit inputs and learned I could modify my character’s appearance. Amber garment? Red toga? Blue and purple toga? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You can wield a blade and protection, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you activate the engage command, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. If you're interested, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I attempted, naturally).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
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 “Owning a fox is prohibited and should you provide another poultry, your grandmother will be furious.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A friendly native Celtic person then started applauding my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” whereas an irritable elderly woman decided to threaten me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Joy of Joyriding
Just as I assumed I’d discovered all there is to discover in the title's first-person feature, I encountered the delight of riding in Ancient Rome. Completely unexpectedly, I clicked on a wagon and was promptly seated on the box. Cattle, asses, even people-powered transports; you can drive them all at your leisure. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, is pretty fast, but don't anticipate Grand Theft Auto-style mischief — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Fighting Restrictions
The single feature that frustrated me within the immersive perspective was finding out I couldn’t partake in any fighting. Wearing my military outfit, I charged toward adversaries in the midst of battle and tried to harm them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their appendages thrashing around, seemed enormously rewarding, but it would’ve been cool to effectively strike targets with my burning arrows.
