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Surprisingly — did you realize gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117: Pax Romana in first-person? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as I was the moment I learned this secret option. Allow me to step away from my empire’s management, entrust it to a capable deputy, borrow a cart, and go for a joyride around the classical city.

Unlocking the First-Person View

Being a city-building title, Anno 117 Pax Romana is normally experienced from a bird's-eye view. 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 — you can explore the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature appeared in the previous Anno title, I felt excited to experience it in Ubisoft's newest game, though I was uncertain it would work prior to being submerged in a structural glitch (possibly an unexpected bug — this option can be prone to glitches now and then).

Discovering the Ancient Streets

Upon freeing myself, I wandered the bustling streets across my settlement and toured shops, taverns, flower fields, and seafood collectors — the experience was splendid to see my diligent efforts from a brand-new perspective. I noticed all kinds of details I wouldn’t have spotted when viewing from overhead: Doorway embellishments, an ass transporting a floral pail, fowl roaming freely, folks chilling on their balconies… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the coating on a pillar becomes engaging to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.

Further Than Mere Wandering

But there’s more to the first-person feature in Anno 117 aside from meandering through streets. I was especially delighted the moment I learned that besides being able to observe crop lands, but also enter them. And despite my expectation interiors would be restricted, I was able to enter earthen quarries, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building during active classes, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the studio have the budget for that), however, you can definitely stroll around a barley farm, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and take a peek inside any small shack provided the entrance is missing.

Visual Quality and Atmosphere

While I was completely ready to witness my city rendered using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and sometimes citizens positioned within a bench as opposed to atop a bench, first-person mode looks much better than expected. The highly detailed textures (especially stone surfaces) shouldn't logically be this impressive in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You may not see specific hair details, yet you will notice wall inscriptions, fiery particles from lamps, brick decoloration, eye details, and evergreen foliage. Evening, with glowing light sources and distant stellar illumination, creates a particularly moody setting, and feels much less frightening compared to Anno 1800, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble nightmarish entities anymore.

Experimentation and Customization

Given the covert first-person feature has no guided tutorial, I opted to try different commands, and immediately located the functions for jumping, dashing, and zoom in or out — the last option enabling me to switch between first and third-person views and back. I subsequently tried pressing some number buttons and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Yellow toga? Red toga? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you activate the engage command, 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 first-person view, I heard a parent advising their offspring that he “Can’t have a pet fox and should you provide another poultry, your grandmother will be furious.” Understandable stance, father character. One lovely local Celt then started applauding my outstanding integration methods by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” whereas an irritable elderly woman decided to threaten me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”

The Fun of Vehicle Use

Just when I thought I’d discovered all there is to discover within the game's immersive perspective, I encountered the delight of riding in Ancient Rome. Entirely by accident, I interacted with a cart and quickly occupied the transport. Cattle, asses, even manually drawn vehicles; you can control each one as desired. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, is pretty fast, although you shouldn't expect open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (again, not saying I’ve tried).

Battle Constraints

The single feature that frustrated me regarding the first-person view was finding out I couldn’t partake in any fighting. Wearing my military outfit, I ran up to the enemy amidst fighting and attempted to attack them, but was entirely disregarded. The proximate observation remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their limbs waving wildly, seemed enormously rewarding, but it would’ve been cool to successfully impact objects using my fiery projectiles.

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