Anno 117 Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Reveals Itself as a Impressive First-Person Perspective.
Wait — did you know 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 hidden feature. Excuse me while step away from managing my empire, leave it in a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and go for a joyride across the Roman world.
Unlocking the First-Person Feature
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana is normally experienced from an overhead perspective. However, if you enter a secret combination — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — it becomes possible to roam your domain as a common citizen. Because an analogous secret was part of the previous Anno title, I was eager to test it in Ubisoft's newest game, yet I had doubts it would operate until I found myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (likely not meant to happen — this feature can be a little buggy at times).
Discovering the Roman Cityscape
After extracting myself, I wandered the busy roads across my settlement and explored markets, breweries, floral patches, and seafood collectors — it felt magnificent to observe the fruits of my labor from a brand-new perspective. I detected all kinds of details I wouldn’t have spotted when viewing from overhead: Entryway ornaments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, poultry scattering about, people relaxing on their verandas… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the paint layers on a column proves fascinating for those not residing in classical times.
More Than Just Walking
Yet, the experience extends to Anno 117’s first-person mode beyond simply walking the paths. I felt particularly pleased the moment I learned that not only could I observe agricultural plots, but also step into them. And even though I thought interiors would be restricted, I was able to enter earthen quarries, tour an esteemed educational structure while lessons were in session, and intrude into private gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the creators allocated resources for that), but it’s entirely possible meander across a cereal plantation, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and look within any modest shelter as long as the door is absent.
Graphics and Ambiance
While I was completely ready to observe my settlement depicted with outdated visual quality, apart from certain rough movements and periodic inhabitants sitting within a bench rather than on a bench, the immersive perspective seems far superior to anticipations. The highly detailed textures (particularly rock faces) are unexpectedly excellent for a title that remains primarily overhead. You might not observe separate follicular elements, but you will see engravings on walls, flames emitting from lights, fading on bricks, eye details, and evergreen foliage. The night, featuring dancing flames 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 lacks official documentation, I decided to experiment a bit, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — with the latter allowing me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and revert. I subsequently tried pressing some number buttons and discovered that I could change my avatar's look. Yellow toga? Ruby clothing? Azure and violet outfit? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You can wield a blade and protection, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; when you press the action key, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. Should you be curious, it’s not possible to kill civilians (not that I attempted, naturally).
Comedy and Population Encounters
However, I had no desire to injure my people, as they're remarkably entertaining. Moments after I entered first-person mode, I overheard a father telling his child that “Owning a fox is prohibited and should you provide another poultry, your gran will have your head.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A pleasant regional Celt then started applauding my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female opted to menace me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just as I assumed I’d discovered all there is to discover in the title's first-person feature, I found the joys of joyriding across historical settings. Completely unexpectedly, I interacted with a cart and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even manually drawn vehicles; you can control each one as desired. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, travels rather rapidly, although you shouldn't expect any GTA-like shenanigans — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Fighting Restrictions
The single feature that frustrated me within the immersive perspective was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Sporting my soldier fit, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and attempted to attack them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view was nonetheless magnificent, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, seemed enormously rewarding, but it would’ve been cool to successfully impact objects via my incendiary bolts.
