Anno 117's Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Is a Stunning First-Person View.
Surprisingly — did you realize it's possible to experience the game Anno 117 using a first-person camera? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction upon finding out this hidden feature. Allow me to temporarily abandon managing my empire, leave it in a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and take a spin through Ancient Rome.
Activating the First-Person Mode
Being a city-building title, the game Anno 117 is typically played from a bird's-eye view. Yet, when you input a hidden code — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — it becomes possible to roam the empire as an ordinary Roman. Because an analogous secret was included in the previous Anno title, I felt excited to try it out in Ubisoft's newest game, though I was uncertain it would operate prior to being chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (which probably wasn’t intended — this option is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Exploring the Streets of Rome
Once I crawled out, I walked the lively avenues across my settlement and toured markets, breweries, flower fields, and seafood collectors — the experience was splendid to witness the fruits of my labor from a brand-new perspective. I detected a variety of intricacies that would escape notice when viewing from overhead: Doorway embellishments, an ass transporting a floral pail, chickens running loose, folks chilling on their balconies… Simply noticing the shape of a window sill and the coating on a pillar proves fascinating to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Beyond Simple Strolling
However, there's additional content to Anno 117’s first-person mode than strolling along the road. I felt particularly pleased when I found out that besides being able to look upon farming fields, but also step into them. And despite my expectation structures would be inaccessible, I managed to access earthen quarries, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and invade personal courtyards. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the studio have the budget for that), but it’s entirely possible stroll around a barley farm, observe people digging and transporting bags, and look within any modest shelter as long as the door is absent.
Appearance and Mood
Even though I expected to see my metropolis represented with outdated visual quality, excluding a few unpolished motions and periodic inhabitants sitting within a bench rather than on a bench, the immersive perspective seems considerably improved over predictions. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) are unexpectedly excellent in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You won't necessarily notice specific hair details, yet you will notice engravings on walls, flames emitting from lights, fading on bricks, iris elements, and conifer needles. Evening, with glowing light sources and stars shining in the distance, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and feels much less frightening relative to the previous game, given that the populace appears unlike nightmarish entities these days.
Discovery and Modification
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode lacks official documentation, I decided to experiment a bit, and promptly found the functions for jumping, dashing, and changing perspective — the last option enabling me to switch between first and third-person views and back. I then decided to hit various digit inputs and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Amber garment? Red toga? Blue and purple toga? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You can wield a blade and protection, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you hit the interaction button, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. Should you be curious, harming inhabitants is impossible (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, since they're incredibly amusing. Moments after I entered the immersive perspective, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and should you provide another poultry, your gran will have your head.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A friendly native Celtic person then started applauding my excellent cross-cultural strategies by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” while some cranky old lady chose to intimidate me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just when I thought I had found everything available in the title's first-person feature, I encountered the delight of riding across historical settings. Completely unexpectedly, I clicked on a wagon and quickly occupied the transport. Cattle, asses, even manually drawn vehicles; you can control each one as desired. The donkey-powered transport, notably, is pretty fast, but don't anticipate 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 regarding the first-person view was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and attempted to attack them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat was nonetheless magnificent, and seeing opponents retreat, their appendages thrashing around, proved very satisfying, but it would’ve been cool to actually hit something using my fiery projectiles.
