Anno 117's Pax Romana's Top Secret Is a Impressive First-Person View.

Wait — did you know you can play Anno 117: Pax Romana from a first-person viewpoint? If you're thinking that, you’re just as shocked compared to my initial response the moment I learned this secret option. Allow me to temporarily abandon overseeing my civilization, delegate it to a reliable subordinate, borrow a cart, and enjoy a ride across the Roman world.

How to Access the First-Person Feature

In its role as a city-builder, Anno 117 Pax Romana is normally experienced using a top-down camera. However, if you input a hidden code — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — it becomes possible to roam your domain as a common citizen. Since a similar easter egg was part of Anno 1800, I was eager to experience it in the new release, but I wasn’t sure it would operate prior to being chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (likely not meant to happen — this mode tends to be prone to glitches now and then).

Exploring the Ancient Streets

Upon freeing myself, I strolled the lively avenues through my metropolis and toured shops, taverns, blossom gardens, and cockle pickers — the experience was splendid to witness the fruits of my labor through a fresh lens. I detected numerous fine points I might have missed from above: Front door decorations, an ass transporting a floral pail, fowl roaming freely, people relaxing on their verandas… Merely examining the form of a ledge and the coating on a pillar becomes engaging for those not residing in classical times.

Further Than Mere Wandering

Yet, the experience extends to the game's immersive perspective beyond simply walking the paths. I felt particularly pleased when I found out that I could not just view farming fields, but also enter them. And although I’d assumed structures would be inaccessible, I could walk onto clay pits, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the creators planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely stroll around a barley farm, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and look within any modest shelter as long as the door is absent.

Visual Quality and Atmosphere

Even though I expected to observe my settlement depicted using primitive rendering, apart from certain rough movements and periodic inhabitants sitting in a bench rather than on a bench, the first-person view appears much better than expected. The intricately designed surfaces (especially stone surfaces) are unexpectedly excellent in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You may not see any individual strands of hair, but you will see engravings on walls, fiery particles from lamps, fading on bricks, iris elements, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and distant stellar illumination, is especially atmospheric, and feels much less frightening versus the earlier title, now that the citizens don’t look like sleep paralysis demons these days.

Testing and Personalization

Given the covert first-person feature has no guided tutorial, I chose to test various actions, and promptly found the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — the last option enabling me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and back. I then decided to hit some number buttons and learned I could modify my character’s appearance. Amber garment? Ruby clothing? Azure and violet outfit? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You may carry a sword and shield, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you hit the interaction button, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. If you're interested, 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, because they’re way too funny. Moments after I entered the first-person view, I heard a parent advising their offspring that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you offer additional fowl, your gran will have your head.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A pleasant regional Celt then proceeded to praise my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female decided to threaten me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”

The Thrill of Transportation

Just when I thought I had found everything available within the game's immersive perspective, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Totally unintentionally, I clicked on a wagon and was promptly seated on the box. Cattle, asses, even people-powered transports; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey-powered transport, notably, travels rather rapidly, though you shouldn’t imagine any GTA-like shenanigans — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (reiterating, without confirming testing).

Battle Constraints

The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was finding out I couldn’t partake in any fighting. Wearing my military outfit, I approached opposing forces during active combat and attempted to attack them, but was entirely disregarded. The close-up view remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their arms flailing about, felt highly gratifying, though it might have been amazing to successfully impact objects using my fiery projectiles.

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