Anno 117: Pax Romana's Hidden Gem Reveals Itself as a Stunning First-Person Perspective.
Wait — did you know it's possible to experience the game Anno 117 using a first-person camera? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished compared to my initial response when I discovered this concealed mode. I must step away from managing my empire, entrust it to a trusted assistant, commandere a carriage, and go for a joyride across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person Feature
In its role as a city-builder, the game Anno 117 is normally experienced from an overhead perspective. Yet, when you press a covert button sequence — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on 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. Since a similar easter egg was part of the previous Anno title, I was eager to experience it in the latest installment, yet I had doubts it would work until I found myself chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (which probably wasn’t intended — this option is a little buggy at times).
Roaming the Roman Cityscape
After extracting myself, I walked the busy roads of my city and visited stalls, alehouses, blossom gardens, and shellfish gatherers — it felt magnificent to see all my hard work through a fresh lens. I noticed a variety of intricacies I wouldn’t have spotted from the top-down view: Front door decorations, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, chickens running loose, people relaxing on their verandas… Merely examining the shape of a window sill and the coloration on a post becomes engaging to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
More Than Just Walking
However, there's additional content to the first-person feature in Anno 117 beyond simply walking the paths. I became extraordinarily excited when I found out that besides being able to view farming fields, but also access 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 as teaching was underway, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the developers allocated resources for that), yet it's completely feasible wander through a grain field, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and glance into any tiny hut when there's no doorway obstructing.
Visual Quality and Atmosphere
Even though I expected to witness my city rendered with outdated visual quality, besides some crude animations and periodic inhabitants sitting in a bench instead of on a bench, first-person mode looks considerably improved over predictions. The highly detailed textures (notably masonry elements) really have no business being this good within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You may not see separate follicular elements, however, you can observe writings on surfaces, fiery particles from lamps, discoloration of masonry, eye details, and evergreen foliage. Evening, with glowing light sources and distant stellar illumination, creates a particularly moody setting, and also a lot less scary relative to the previous game, now that the citizens don’t look like sleep paralysis demons now.
Experimentation and Customization
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode lacks official documentation, I decided to experiment a bit, and immediately located the options to jump, sprint, and changing perspective — with the latter allowing me to change from first-person to third-person mode and return. I then experimented with certain numeric keys and found I could alter my representative's visual design. Golden robe? Red toga? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You may carry a sword and shield, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; if you hit the interaction button, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. If you're interested, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I attempted, naturally).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
However, I had no desire to injure my people, because they’re way too funny. Only seconds after I landed the first-person view, I heard a parent advising their offspring that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you feed it one more chicken, your grandmother will be furious.” Understandable stance, father character. One lovely local Celt then started applauding my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” while some cranky old lady opted to menace me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
Just as I assumed I’d discovered all there is to discover within the game's immersive perspective, I found the joys of joyriding in Ancient Rome. Totally unintentionally, I clicked on a wagon and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Oxen, donkeys, even people-powered transports; 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 — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Fighting Restrictions
The single feature that frustrated me regarding the first-person view was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Equipped in warrior attire, I ran up to the enemy amidst fighting and tried to harm them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat was still rather spectacular, and seeing opponents retreat, their arms flailing about, seemed enormously rewarding, but it would’ve been cool to effectively strike targets with my burning arrows.
