Anno 117's Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Is a Stunning First-Person Perspective.
Surprisingly — did you realize you can play Anno 117 Pax Romana using a first-person camera? Should that be your response, your surprise matches as my own reaction the moment I learned this secret option. I must temporarily abandon managing my empire, delegate it to a capable deputy, borrow a cart, and enjoy a ride across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person View
Being a city-building title, Anno 117: Pax Romana usually operates from an overhead perspective. However, if you enter a secret combination — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you can explore your domain as a common citizen. Because an analogous secret appeared in Anno 1800, I looked forward to try it out in the latest installment, yet I had doubts it would function until I found myself stuck in a Celtic building (possibly an unexpected bug — this mode can be prone to glitches now and then).
Roaming the Ancient Streets
After extracting myself, I strolled the lively avenues across my settlement and visited markets, breweries, flower fields, and seafood collectors — the experience was splendid to observe my diligent efforts through a fresh lens. I noticed all kinds of details I wouldn’t have spotted when viewing from overhead: Entryway ornaments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, chickens running loose, folks chilling on their balconies… Simply noticing the design of a windowsill and the coloration on a post becomes engaging for those not residing in classical times.
Beyond Simple Strolling
But there’s more to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I was especially delighted upon discovering that I could not just observe farming fields, but also step into them. And even though I thought the building models would be off-limits, I could walk onto clay pits, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and intrude into private gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the creators allocated resources for that), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, observe people digging and transporting bags, and look within any modest shelter as long as the door is absent.
Appearance and Mood
While I was completely ready to see my metropolis represented with outdated visual quality, apart from certain rough movements and periodic inhabitants sitting in a bench instead of on a bench, the first-person view appears much better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 in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You may not see specific hair details, but you will see wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, eye details, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and celestial bodies twinkling afar, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary versus the earlier title, given that the populace appears unlike terrifying apparitions these days.
Experimentation and Customization
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I decided to experiment a bit, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — the zoom function permitting me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and revert. I subsequently tried pressing various digit inputs and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Yellow toga? Red toga? Azure and violet outfit? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you hit the interaction button, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. In case you’re wondering, it’s not possible to kill civilians (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
However, I had no desire to injure my people, because they’re way too funny. Shortly after I activated first-person mode, I overheard a father telling his child that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you offer additional fowl, your elder will punish you.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A friendly native Celtic person then proceeded to praise my excellent cross-cultural strategies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” whereas an irritable elderly woman opted to menace me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Joy of Joyriding
At the moment I believed I had found everything available in the title's first-person feature, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Totally unintentionally, I selected a carriage and quickly occupied the transport. Cattle, asses, even manually drawn vehicles; you can control each one as desired. The donkey-powered transport, notably, travels rather rapidly, though you shouldn’t imagine open-world vehicular chaos — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Battle Constraints
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 ran up to the enemy during active combat and endeavored to damage them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view was nonetheless magnificent, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, felt highly gratifying, but it would’ve been cool to effectively strike targets using my fiery projectiles.
