Anno 117: Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Reveals Itself as a Impressive First-Person View.
Surprisingly — did you realize gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117 Pax Romana in first-person? Should that be your response, you feel equally astonished compared to my initial response upon finding out this secret option. Allow me to temporarily abandon my empire’s management, delegate it to a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and take a spin across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person Feature
As a city-building game, the game Anno 117 is typically played from a bird's-eye view. However, if you press a covert button sequence — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard alternatively “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 the earlier game Anno 1800, I was eager to try it out in Ubisoft's newest game, though I was uncertain it would function until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (likely not meant to happen — this option can be somewhat unstable occasionally).
Roaming the Ancient Streets
After extracting myself, I walked the lively avenues of my city and explored shops, taverns, floral patches, and cockle pickers — it felt magnificent to observe my diligent efforts using an entirely new viewpoint. I noticed a variety of intricacies I might have missed when viewing from overhead: Doorway embellishments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, poultry scattering about, citizens lounging on their terraces… Even just observing the design of a windowsill and the coating on a pillar proves fascinating for those not residing in classical times.
More Than Just Walking
But there’s more to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I became extraordinarily excited when I found out that not only could I observe crop lands, but also enter them. And despite my expectation interiors would be restricted, I could walk onto mud extraction sites, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building during active classes, and intrude into private gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the creators planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, observe people digging and transporting bags, and take a peek inside any small shack when there's no doorway obstructing.
Appearance and Mood
While I was completely ready to observe my settlement depicted using primitive rendering, besides some crude animations and the occasional civilian resting inside seating instead of on a bench, first-person mode looks far superior to anticipations. The intricately designed surfaces (particularly rock faces) shouldn't logically be this impressive within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You won't necessarily notice separate follicular elements, however, you can observe engravings on walls, fiery particles from lamps, discoloration of masonry, pupils, and evergreen foliage. The night, featuring dancing flames and distant stellar illumination, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and feels much less frightening relative to the previous game, given that the populace appears unlike nightmarish entities now.
Discovery and Modification
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective has no guided tutorial, I chose to test various actions, and promptly found the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — the zoom function permitting me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and back. I then decided to hit various digit inputs and found I could alter my avatar's look. Amber garment? Ruby clothing? Azure and violet outfit? 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. Should you be curious, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Comedy and Population Encounters
However, I had no desire to injure my people, as they're remarkably entertaining. Shortly after I activated the immersive perspective, I overheard a father telling his child that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you offer additional fowl, your grandmother will be furious.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then started applauding my outstanding integration methods by describing it as “Ideal combination,” whereas an irritable elderly woman chose to intimidate me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Thrill of Transportation
At the moment I believed I uncovered all possible content in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving through classical settlements. Totally unintentionally, I selected a carriage and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Bovines, equines, even human-pulled carts; you can drive them all at your leisure. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, travels rather rapidly, although you shouldn't expect 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 regarding the first-person view was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Sporting my soldier fit, I ran up to the enemy in the midst of battle and tried to harm them, yet was completely overlooked. The proximate observation was nonetheless magnificent, and watching the enemy run, their arms flailing about, seemed enormously rewarding, though it might have been amazing to actually hit something with my burning arrows.
