Hold on — were you aware it's possible to experience the game Anno 117 using a first-person camera? Should that be your response, you feel equally astonished compared to my initial response the moment I learned this concealed mode. Excuse me while temporarily abandon overseeing my civilization, leave it in a trusted assistant, borrow a cart, and enjoy a ride across the Roman world.
As a city-building game, the game Anno 117 is typically played from an overhead perspective. Yet, when you enter a secret combination — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you gain the ability to walk your domain as a common citizen. Since a similar easter egg was included in the earlier game Anno 1800, I felt excited to test it in the new release, yet I had doubts it would work prior to being chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (likely not meant to happen — this feature can be prone to glitches now and then).
Once I crawled out, I wandered the busy roads through my metropolis and visited markets, breweries, blossom gardens, and shellfish gatherers — it was glorious to observe my diligent efforts using an entirely new viewpoint. I detected numerous fine points that would escape notice when viewing from overhead: Front door decorations, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, chickens running loose, people relaxing on their verandas… Simply noticing the design of a windowsill and the coloration on a post is quite interesting to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
However, there's additional content to the first-person feature in Anno 117 beyond simply walking the paths. I became extraordinarily excited upon discovering that I could not just look upon farming fields, but also enter them. And even though I thought structures would be inaccessible, I could walk onto earthen quarries, investigate a respected schoolhouse during active classes, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the creators allocated resources for that), but it’s entirely possible meander across a cereal plantation, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and take a peek inside any small shack provided the entrance is missing.
While I was completely ready to see my metropolis represented with outdated visual quality, apart from certain rough movements and the occasional civilian resting within a bench instead of on a bench, first-person mode looks considerably improved over predictions. The highly detailed textures (especially stone surfaces) are unexpectedly excellent within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You might not observe any individual strands of hair, however, you can observe engravings on walls, fiery particles from lamps, discoloration of masonry, iris elements, and evergreen foliage. The night, featuring dancing flames and stars shining in the distance, is especially atmospheric, and also a lot less scary compared to Anno 1800, now that the citizens don’t look like nightmarish entities now.
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode lacks official documentation, I decided to experiment a bit, and immediately located the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — with the latter allowing me to change from first-person to third-person mode and return. I subsequently tried pressing various digit inputs and found I could alter my avatar's look. Golden robe? Red toga? Blue and purple toga? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; if you activate the engage command, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. If you're interested, it’s not possible to kill civilians (though I didn't test this, obviously).
However, I had no desire to injure my people, since they're incredibly amusing. Shortly after I activated the immersive perspective, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you feed it one more chicken, your elder will punish you.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A pleasant regional Celt then proceeded to praise my outstanding integration methods by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” while some cranky old lady chose to intimidate me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
Just as I assumed I uncovered all possible content in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving in Ancient Rome. Entirely by accident, I selected a carriage and quickly occupied the transport. Oxen, donkeys, even human-pulled carts; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey cart, in particular, is pretty fast, but don't anticipate open-world vehicular chaos — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (again, not saying I’ve tried).
The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was learning about my exclusion from in combat situations. Wearing my military outfit, I charged toward adversaries in the midst of battle and attempted to attack them, but was entirely disregarded. The close-up view was nonetheless magnificent, and seeing opponents retreat, their appendages thrashing around, seemed enormously rewarding, though it might have been amazing to effectively strike targets with my burning arrows.
A passionate writer and traveler sharing insights on personal growth and lifestyle from a UK perspective.
