Anno 117 Pax Romana's Top Secret Reveals Itself as a Stunning First-Person View.
Wait — did you know 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 upon finding out this hidden feature. I must briefly leave overseeing my civilization, entrust it to a trusted assistant, borrow a cart, and go for a joyride through Ancient Rome.
Activating the First-Person View
Being a city-building title, Anno 117 Pax Romana usually operates from a bird's-eye view. However, if you input a hidden code — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or else “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. Because an analogous secret was part of Anno 1800, I was eager to test it in Ubisoft's newest game, though I was uncertain it would function before I discovered myself submerged in a structural glitch (possibly an unexpected bug — this feature is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Discovering the Ancient Streets
Once I crawled out, I walked the lively avenues across my settlement and toured shops, taverns, blossom gardens, and shellfish gatherers — it felt magnificent to see the fruits of my labor from a brand-new perspective. I noticed a variety of intricacies I wouldn’t have spotted when viewing from overhead: Doorway embellishments, an ass transporting a floral pail, fowl roaming freely, folks chilling on their balconies… Merely examining the form of a ledge and the coloration on a post is quite interesting to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
Further Than Mere Wandering
Yet, the experience extends to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I felt particularly pleased when I found out that not only could I observe farming fields, but also enter them. And although I’d assumed interiors would be restricted, I could walk onto mud extraction sites, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and invade personal courtyards. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the developers have the budget for that), however, you can definitely stroll around a barley farm, observe people digging and transporting bags, and take a peek inside any small shack provided the entrance is missing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
Even though I expected to observe my settlement depicted using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and the occasional civilian resting inside seating rather than on a bench, the immersive perspective seems considerably improved over predictions. The meticulously crafted materials (especially stone surfaces) really have no business being this good within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You won't necessarily notice specific hair details, yet you will notice engravings on walls, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, eye details, and pine tree leaves. Evening, with glowing light sources and distant stellar illumination, is especially atmospheric, and proves significantly less intimidating compared to Anno 1800, now that the citizens don’t look like nightmarish entities anymore.
Discovery and Modification
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective lacks official documentation, I opted to try different commands, and promptly found the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — the zoom function permitting me to change from first-person to third-person mode and revert. I then experimented with some number buttons and discovered that I could change my character’s appearance. Golden robe? Ruby clothing? Azure and violet outfit? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; when you press the action key, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. Should you be curious, harming inhabitants is impossible (not that I attempted, naturally).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
However, I had no desire to injure my people, as they're remarkably entertaining. Only seconds after I landed the first-person view, I overheard a father telling his child that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you offer additional fowl, your elder will punish you.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A pleasant regional Celt then began complimenting my excellent cross-cultural strategies by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” whereas an irritable elderly woman opted to menace me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Joy of Joyriding
Just when I thought I had found everything available within the game's immersive perspective, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Totally unintentionally, I interacted with a cart and was promptly seated on the box. Cattle, asses, even manually drawn vehicles; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey cart, in particular, is pretty fast, but don't anticipate Grand Theft Auto-style mischief — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Fighting Restrictions
The only thing that disappointed me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was discovering my inability to participate in combat situations. Wearing my military outfit, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and tried to harm them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view was still rather spectacular, and seeing opponents retreat, their arms flailing about, proved very satisfying, though it might have been amazing to actually hit something via my incendiary bolts.