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Wait — did you know you can play Anno 117: Pax Romana in first-person? If you're thinking that, you’re just as shocked as I was when I discovered this secret option. Allow me to briefly leave managing my empire, entrust it to a trusted assistant, borrow a cart, and take a spin through Ancient Rome.

Activating the First-Person View

Being a city-building title, Anno 117: Pax Romana is normally experienced from an overhead perspective. However, if you input a hidden code — such as “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. Because an analogous secret was included in the previous Anno title, I was eager to test it in the latest installment, yet I had doubts it would work prior to being chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (which probably wasn’t intended — this mode tends to be a little buggy at times).

Discovering the Roman Cityscape

After extracting myself, I strolled the busy roads of my city and visited shops, taverns, flower fields, and seafood collectors — the experience was splendid to see all my hard work using an entirely new viewpoint. I detected all kinds of details I might have missed when viewing from overhead: Entryway ornaments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, fowl roaming freely, folks chilling on their balconies… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the paint layers on a column becomes engaging to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.

Beyond Simple Strolling

But there’s more to the game's immersive perspective aside from meandering through streets. I felt particularly pleased when I found out that I could not just look upon farming fields, but also step into them. And even though I thought interiors would be restricted, I managed to access 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 developers have the budget for that), but it’s entirely possible meander across a cereal plantation, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and glance into any tiny hut as long as the door is absent.

Appearance and Mood

Even though I expected to observe my settlement depicted with outdated visual quality, excluding a few unpolished motions and the occasional civilian resting inside seating as opposed to atop a bench, first-person mode looks much better than expected. The meticulously crafted materials (especially stone surfaces) are unexpectedly excellent for a title that remains primarily overhead. You won't necessarily notice specific hair details, but you will see wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, eye details, and evergreen foliage. The night, featuring dancing flames and distant stellar illumination, is especially atmospheric, and also a lot less scary compared to Anno 1800, given that the populace appears unlike nightmarish entities now.

Testing and Personalization

Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode lacks official documentation, I chose to test various actions, and promptly found the functions for jumping, dashing, and zoom in or out — with the latter allowing me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and return. I subsequently tried pressing some number buttons and discovered that I could change my avatar's look. Amber garment? Crimson attire? Azure and violet outfit? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? 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. If you're interested, it’s not possible to kill civilians (not that I’ve tried, of course).

Humor and Citizen Interactions

However, I had no desire to injure my people, as they're remarkably entertaining. Only seconds after I landed the immersive perspective, I overheard a father telling his child that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you feed it one more chicken, your elder will punish you.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then proceeded to praise my excellent cross-cultural strategies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” whereas an irritable elderly woman decided to threaten me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”

The Joy of Joyriding

At the moment I believed I had found everything available within the game's immersive perspective, I experienced the pleasure of driving across historical settings. Entirely by accident, I clicked on a wagon and was promptly seated on the box. Bovines, equines, even people-powered transports; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey cart, in particular, travels rather rapidly, but don't anticipate any GTA-like shenanigans — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (once more, not admitting any attempts).

Battle Constraints

The single feature that frustrated me within the immersive perspective was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Equipped in warrior attire, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and endeavored to damage them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their appendages thrashing around, proved very satisfying, but it would’ve been cool to successfully impact objects using my fiery projectiles.

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