Anno 117: Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Is a Impressive First-Person View.
Wait — did you know gamers have the option to enjoy 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 secret option. Allow me to step away from managing my empire, delegate it to a reliable subordinate, borrow a cart, and take a spin across the Roman world.
Activating the First-Person View
As a city-building game, the game Anno 117 is normally experienced from an overhead perspective. Yet, when you enter a secret combination — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you can explore the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature was part of the earlier game Anno 1800, I was eager to experience it in the new release, though I was uncertain it would work before I discovered myself stuck in a Celtic building (likely not meant to happen — this option can be a little buggy at times).
Exploring the Roman Cityscape
Once I crawled out, I wandered the bustling streets through my metropolis and visited shops, taverns, flower fields, and cockle pickers — it felt magnificent to observe my diligent efforts from a brand-new perspective. I noticed a variety of intricacies I wouldn’t have spotted when viewing from overhead: Front door decorations, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, chickens running loose, citizens lounging on their terraces… Simply noticing the shape of a window sill and the coating on a pillar is quite interesting for those not residing in classical times.
Further Than Mere Wandering
However, there's additional content to the game's immersive perspective beyond simply walking the paths. I became extraordinarily excited when I found out that I could not just view farming fields, but also step into them. And although I’d assumed structures would be inaccessible, I could walk onto clay pits, investigate a respected schoolhouse during active classes, and invade personal courtyards. Don't bother with door access (not even the developers planned for that functionality), yet it's completely feasible stroll around a barley farm, observe people digging and transporting bags, and look within any modest shelter provided the entrance is missing.
Graphics and Ambiance
Although I was fully prepared to witness my city rendered with outdated visual quality, apart from certain rough movements and periodic inhabitants sitting in a bench as opposed to atop a bench, first-person mode looks considerably improved over predictions. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) are unexpectedly excellent for a title that remains primarily overhead. You might not observe specific hair details, however, you can observe engravings on walls, fiery particles from lamps, discoloration of masonry, pupils, and pine tree leaves. The night, featuring dancing flames and stars shining in the distance, creates a particularly moody setting, and feels much less frightening relative to the previous game, now that the citizens don’t look like terrifying apparitions anymore.
Testing and Personalization
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I chose to test various actions, and quickly discovered the options to jump, sprint, and adjusting the view — with the latter allowing me to switch between first and third-person views and return. I subsequently tried pressing some number buttons and discovered that I could change my avatar's look. Amber garment? Red toga? Azure and violet outfit? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You may carry a sword and shield, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; if you hit the interaction button, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. In case you’re wondering, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I attempted, naturally).
Comedy and Population Encounters
Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, because they’re way too funny. Only seconds after I landed the immersive perspective, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you feed it one more chicken, your gran will have your head.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A friendly native Celtic person then proceeded to praise my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female chose to intimidate me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Joy of Joyriding
At the moment I believed I’d discovered all there is to discover in the title's first-person feature, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Completely unexpectedly, 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 cart, in particular, moves quite quickly, though you shouldn’t imagine any GTA-like shenanigans — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Battle Constraints
The sole aspect that let me down in Anno 117’s first-person mode was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I approached opposing forces during active combat and attempted to attack them, yet was completely overlooked. The proximate observation remained quite impressive, and observing foes flee, their appendages thrashing around, seemed enormously rewarding, but it would’ve been cool to actually hit something via my incendiary bolts.