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Wait — did you know it's possible to experience the game Anno 117 from a first-person viewpoint? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as I was upon finding out this concealed mode. Allow me to briefly leave overseeing my civilization, leave it in a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and take a spin across the Roman world.

How to Access the First-Person View

Being a city-building title, the game Anno 117 is normally experienced from a bird's-eye view. But, should you press a covert button sequence — 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 can explore the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature appeared in the earlier game Anno 1800, I was eager to try it out in the new release, though I was uncertain it would operate until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (possibly an unexpected bug — this option is a little buggy at times).

Discovering the Ancient Streets

After extracting myself, I walked the lively avenues of my city and explored stalls, alehouses, blossom gardens, and cockle pickers — the experience was splendid to witness the fruits of my labor through a fresh lens. I detected all kinds of details I might have missed from the top-down view: Front door decorations, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, fowl roaming freely, folks chilling on their balconies… Simply noticing the design of a windowsill and the paint layers on a column is quite interesting to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.

Beyond Simple Strolling

However, there's additional content to the first-person feature in Anno 117 than strolling along the road. I was especially delighted upon discovering that besides being able to observe agricultural plots, but also access them. And even though I thought structures would be inaccessible, I was able to enter mud extraction sites, tour an esteemed educational structure as teaching was underway, and invade personal courtyards. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the studio allocated resources for that), 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.

Visual Quality and Atmosphere

Even though I expected to observe my settlement depicted using primitive rendering, besides some crude animations and the occasional civilian resting within a bench rather than on a bench, the first-person view appears much better than expected. The highly detailed textures (particularly rock faces) are unexpectedly excellent for a title that remains primarily overhead. You may not see specific hair details, however, you can observe wall inscriptions, sparks flying from torches, fading on bricks, iris elements, and pine tree leaves. The night, featuring dancing flames and distant stellar illumination, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary compared to Anno 1800, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble nightmarish entities now.

Testing and Personalization

Because the game's hidden immersive perspective doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I opted to try different commands, and quickly discovered the options to jump, sprint, and zoom in or out — with the latter allowing me to change from first-person to third-person mode and return. I then decided to hit some number buttons and found I could alter my character’s appearance. Amber garment? Crimson attire? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You can wield a blade and protection, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you activate the engage command, 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

However, I had no desire to injure my people, since they're incredibly amusing. Only seconds after I landed first-person mode, I heard a parent advising their offspring that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you offer additional fowl, your gran will have your head.” Rightly so, Roman dad. One lovely local Celt then started applauding my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” 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’d discovered all there is to discover within the game's immersive perspective, I experienced the pleasure of driving across historical settings. Entirely by accident, I clicked on a wagon and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Bovines, equines, even manually drawn vehicles; you can control each one as desired. The donkey-powered transport, notably, moves quite quickly, though you shouldn’t imagine open-world vehicular chaos — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (reiterating, without confirming testing).

Fighting Restrictions

The only thing that disappointed me within the immersive perspective was finding out I couldn’t partake in battle encounters. Sporting my soldier fit, I approached opposing forces during active combat and tried to harm them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat was still rather spectacular, and watching the enemy run, their limbs waving wildly, seemed enormously rewarding, yet it would have been exciting to successfully impact objects using my fiery projectiles.

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