Anno 117's Pax Romana's Hidden Gem Turns Out to Be a Impressive First-Person Perspective.
Surprisingly — did you realize gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117: Pax Romana using a first-person camera? If that’s your reaction, your surprise matches compared to my initial response the moment I learned this concealed mode. I must briefly leave managing my empire, leave it in a capable deputy, take a wagon, and enjoy a ride through Ancient Rome.
How to Access the First-Person View
In its role as a city-builder, Anno 117: Pax Romana is typically played using a top-down camera. But, should you input a hidden code — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — it becomes possible to roam the realm as a regular inhabitant. Since a similar easter egg was included in Anno 1800, I was eager to try it out in Ubisoft's newest game, yet I had doubts it would operate prior to being stuck in a Celtic building (likely not meant to happen — this feature is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Roaming the Streets of Rome
After extracting myself, I strolled the busy roads across my settlement and visited markets, breweries, flower fields, and shellfish gatherers — it felt magnificent to observe the fruits of my labor from a brand-new perspective. I detected all kinds of details I might have missed when viewing from overhead: Front door decorations, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, poultry scattering about, citizens lounging on their terraces… Simply noticing the shape of a window sill and the paint layers on a column proves fascinating to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
More Than Just Walking
However, there's additional content to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I was especially delighted when I found out that I could not just observe agricultural plots, but also step into them. And despite my expectation the building models would be off-limits, I was able to enter mud extraction sites, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and invade personal courtyards. Don't bother with door access (not even the creators planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely meander across a cereal plantation, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and glance into any tiny hut when there's no doorway obstructing.
Appearance and Mood
While I was completely ready to witness my city rendered with outdated visual quality, apart from certain rough movements and the occasional civilian resting in a bench rather than on a bench, the immersive perspective seems far superior to anticipations. The intricately designed surfaces (notably masonry elements) are unexpectedly excellent in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You won't necessarily notice specific hair details, however, you can observe engravings on walls, fiery particles from lamps, fading on bricks, pupils, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and celestial bodies twinkling afar, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and proves significantly less intimidating relative to the previous game, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble nightmarish entities anymore.
Testing and Personalization
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective has no guided tutorial, I opted to try different commands, and promptly found the functions for jumping, dashing, and changing perspective — with the latter allowing me to change from first-person to third-person mode and back. I then decided to hit certain numeric keys and discovered that I could change my character’s appearance. Yellow toga? Red toga? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? 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. Should you be curious, it’s not possible to kill civilians (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Comedy and Population Encounters
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, since they're incredibly amusing. Shortly after I activated the first-person view, I overheard a father telling his child that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you feed it one more chicken, your elder will punish you.” Understandable stance, father character. A pleasant regional Celt then proceeded to praise my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” 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 uncovered all possible content in the title's first-person feature, I encountered the delight of riding through classical settlements. Completely unexpectedly, I selected a carriage and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even human-pulled carts; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey cart, in particular, is pretty fast, although you shouldn't expect open-world vehicular chaos — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Fighting Restrictions
The sole aspect that let me down regarding the first-person view was discovering my inability to participate in combat situations. Sporting my soldier fit, I charged toward adversaries in the midst of battle and endeavored to damage them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view was nonetheless magnificent, and seeing opponents retreat, their arms flailing about, proved very satisfying, though it might have been amazing to successfully impact objects via my incendiary bolts.
