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Hold on — were you aware you can play the game Anno 117 from a first-person viewpoint? If you're thinking that, you feel equally astonished compared to my initial response when I discovered this hidden feature. I must step away from overseeing my civilization, leave it in a capable deputy, borrow a cart, and take a spin around the classical city.

How to Access the First-Person View

As a city-building game, the game Anno 117 is typically played from an overhead perspective. But, should you press a covert button sequence — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — it becomes possible to roam the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature was part of the earlier game Anno 1800, I felt excited to try it out in Ubisoft's newest game, yet I had doubts it would operate before I discovered myself stuck in a Celtic building (which probably wasn’t intended — this mode tends to be a little buggy at times).

Roaming the Roman Cityscape

Once I crawled out, I strolled the lively avenues across my settlement and explored markets, breweries, blossom gardens, and cockle pickers — it was glorious to observe the fruits of my labor through a fresh lens. I detected all kinds of details I might have missed when viewing from overhead: Entryway ornaments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, chickens running loose, citizens lounging on their terraces… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the paint layers on a column is quite interesting to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.

Beyond Simple Strolling

However, there's additional content to Anno 117’s first-person mode beyond simply walking the paths. I became extraordinarily excited upon discovering that I could not just view crop lands, but also enter them. And despite my expectation the building models would be off-limits, I managed to access mud extraction sites, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the creators planned for that functionality), however, you can definitely stroll around a barley farm, observe people digging and transporting bags, and look within any modest shelter as long as the door is absent.

Appearance and Mood

While I was completely ready to observe my settlement depicted using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and periodic inhabitants sitting inside seating as opposed to atop a bench, first-person mode looks much better than expected. The meticulously crafted materials (especially stone surfaces) shouldn't logically be this impressive within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You may not see separate follicular elements, yet you will notice engravings on walls, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, iris elements, and evergreen foliage. The night, featuring dancing flames and celestial bodies twinkling afar, creates a particularly moody setting, and proves significantly less intimidating compared to Anno 1800, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble terrifying apparitions these days.

Experimentation and Customization

Given the covert first-person feature has no guided tutorial, I opted to try different commands, and promptly found the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — the zoom function permitting me to change from first-person to third-person mode and revert. I then decided to hit some number buttons and learned I could modify my avatar's look. Amber garment? Red toga? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You can wield a blade and protection, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you activate the engage command, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. In case you’re wondering, harming inhabitants is impossible (though I didn't test this, obviously).

Humor and Citizen Interactions

But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, since they're incredibly amusing. Moments after I entered the immersive perspective, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you offer additional fowl, your gran will have your head.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A friendly native Celtic person then started applauding my outstanding integration methods by describing it as “Ideal combination,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female chose to intimidate me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”

The Fun of Vehicle Use

Just as I assumed I had found everything available in the title's first-person feature, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Entirely by accident, I selected a carriage and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Cattle, asses, even manually drawn vehicles; you may operate any of them freely. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, is pretty fast, but don't anticipate Grand Theft Auto-style mischief — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (once more, not admitting any attempts).

Combat Limitations

The single feature that frustrated me regarding the first-person view was finding out I couldn’t partake in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I approached opposing forces in the midst of battle and endeavored to damage them, yet was completely overlooked. The front-row seat was still rather spectacular, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, seemed enormously rewarding, yet it would have been exciting to actually hit something using my fiery projectiles.

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