🔗 Share this article

Wait — did you know you can play Anno 117: Pax Romana using a first-person camera? Should that be your response, you’re just as shocked compared to my initial response the moment I learned this concealed mode. I must temporarily abandon overseeing my civilization, leave it in a trusted assistant, take a wagon, and take a spin through Ancient Rome.

How to Access the First-Person Feature

Being a city-building title, Anno 117: Pax Romana is normally experienced from a bird's-eye view. However, if you press a covert button sequence — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you can explore the realm as a regular inhabitant. Since a similar easter egg was included in the previous Anno title, I looked forward to test it in the latest installment, yet I had doubts it would operate until I found myself stuck in a Celtic building (possibly an unexpected bug — this option tends to be prone to glitches now and then).

Discovering the Streets of Rome

After extracting myself, I wandered the bustling streets across my settlement and visited markets, breweries, blossom gardens, and seafood collectors — it felt magnificent to witness my diligent efforts through a fresh lens. I detected all kinds of details that would escape notice from the top-down view: Front door decorations, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, fowl roaming freely, people relaxing on their verandas… Even just observing the shape of a window sill and the coating on a pillar becomes engaging to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.

More Than Just Walking

Yet, the experience extends to Anno 117’s first-person mode beyond simply walking the paths. I was especially delighted upon discovering that not only could I look upon farming fields, but also access them. And even though I thought structures would be inaccessible, I was able to enter mud extraction sites, investigate a respected schoolhouse during active classes, and intrude into private gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the developers allocated resources for that), yet it's completely feasible wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and look within any modest shelter provided the entrance is missing.

Appearance and Mood

While I was completely ready to see my metropolis represented with outdated visual quality, apart from certain rough movements and periodic inhabitants sitting in a bench instead of on a bench, the first-person view appears much better than expected. The intricately designed surfaces (particularly rock faces) are unexpectedly excellent in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You won't necessarily notice separate follicular elements, however, you can observe engravings on walls, sparks flying from torches, discoloration of masonry, pupils, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires 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 terrifying apparitions anymore.

Experimentation and Customization

Given the covert first-person feature doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I chose to test various actions, and promptly found the functions for jumping, dashing, and zoom in or out — the last option enabling me to switch between first and third-person views and return. I then decided to hit various digit inputs and found I could alter my character’s appearance. Amber garment? Red toga? Blue and purple toga? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you hit the interaction button, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. Should you be curious, harming inhabitants is impossible (though I didn't test this, obviously).

Comedy and Population Encounters

But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, because they’re way too funny. Moments after I entered the immersive perspective, I overheard a father telling his child that “Owning a fox is prohibited and should you provide another poultry, your grandmother will be furious.” Understandable stance, father character. A friendly native Celtic person then proceeded to praise my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” whereas an irritable elderly woman chose to intimidate me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”

The Thrill of Transportation

At the moment I believed I had found everything available in the title's first-person feature, I encountered the delight of riding through classical settlements. Entirely by accident, I clicked on a wagon 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, moves quite quickly, but don't anticipate open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (again, not saying I’ve tried).

Battle Constraints

The only thing that disappointed me within the immersive perspective was finding out I couldn’t partake in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I approached opposing forces amidst fighting and tried to harm them, yet was completely overlooked. The proximate observation remained quite impressive, and observing foes flee, their limbs waving wildly, seemed enormously rewarding, though it might have been amazing to actually hit something via my incendiary bolts.

{Conclusion: More to Discover|Final Thoughts: Additional Exploration