Pax Dei: “The game of a lifetime”, this sandbox and social MMO wants to revolutionize the genre, and it will undoubtedly succeed!

Game News Pax Dei: “The game of a lifetime”, this sandbox and social MMO wants to revolutionize the genre, and it will undoubtedly succeed!

Just imagine… A deserted land that stretches as far as the eye can see, where only the remains of an ancient civilization stand. Here, magic, myths and ghosts exist, but above all, everything remains to be done: homes, villages, and eventually kingdoms. A land so deserted that it doesn’t host any NPCs, just real players who have come on a “pilgrimage”. This world is the dream of Mainframe Industries with Pax Dei, a sandbox and social MMO. “It’s the game of a lifetime, a lot of us have wanted to make this game for a very long time”, says Sulka Haro, the studio’s chief executive producer and co-founder, in an interview. “The idea is to create a virtual world where millions of people will want to live for years.” A “big” dream, of which we had a foretaste.

Let’s take a walk in the woods

As part of a closed alpha, the beginnings of Pax Dei were offered to us… The team focused here on what they call “peaceful gameplay”: exploring a vast world, collecting resources, crafting items, building your own home! Without a second thought, after creating our avatar (in an already rather complete interface), we walked through the Province of Merrie, more precisely the “Heartland” of Shire, with nothing more than three pieces of cloth on our backs. The Heartland are sacred regions where the player can claim any piece of land and make their own home.

Confident – under the guidance of a divine protector – we set off on an adventure, collecting stones and pieces of wood along the way. It’s the perfect way to build up an axe and then a makeshift hammer and take an interest in the crafting aspect. As it stands, Pax Dei already offers quite a few workbenches (whether it’s for construction, blacksmithing, or sewing) and everything you need to build a home worthy of the name… During our presentation, Mainframe even showed us a village entirely created by the players. There was everything: mansions; a central square; a bridge to cross the river. Here, when several plots of land side by side are claimed, the buildable area grows!

Social at the heart of the equation

Of course, to achieve this result, you don’t need three sticks and two and a half pebbles: the easiest way is still – spoiler – to cooperate with other players… “Everything we’ve done is about working and collaborating, making social interactions the central mechanics of the experience,” says Reynir Hardarson, game director for Pax Dei. The man and his team firmly believe in this social dimension. “A few years ago, we built EVE Online (an MMO in space at the time developed by CCP) and there was an emphasis on human interactions (…) At that time, we learned that the most fascinating thing about an MMO is playing with other people, together or against each other.” With this choice, the space game has given life to some pretty crazy anecdotes, in particular the ‘Greatest betrayal in history’.

Reynir Hardarson isn’t the only sailor to have worked on EVE Online! This is also the case for Pétur Örn Þórarinsson, lead game designer… Mainframe Industries has talents from all walks of life across Europe – 70 perm developersFrom the world of MMO, AAA and mobile. These include formerHabbo Hotel (old metaverse for teens famous in the early 2000s),Angry Birdsfrom World of Warcraft,Hellblade – orAlan Wake. In short, everything you need to bring Pax Dei to life. We haven’t specified it yet, but the studio wants its MMO to eventually be in the “cloud”, i.e. available on all media – PC, console, mobile – and without any downloads. Oh, and the title runs on Unreal Engine 5.

There is still a (very) long way to go

You can see us coming: Pax Dei is a very ambitious project, both in terms of content and form, and there is currently no release window to sink your teeth into. Pétur Örn Þórarinsson even admits that, in a sense, the game will never be “really finished”, as Mainframe Industries has free rein to add more and more mechanics (the company is also financed by investors via a venture capital fund). And Reynir Hardarson has no shortage of mechanics.

“We see the first players as ‘pilgrims’ who would arrive on an uninhabited land (…) The idea is that people start by building a house – and that house becomes the basis of a village (…) eventually you can build kingdoms, that’s the ultimate dream. It’s a tangible world because it’s built by the players, and the players are really the most important thing in the game, and the drama between the players and the coalitions is what will make the game last forever.” – Reynir Hardarson, game director of Pax Dei

A dream project that could take “decades” to come to fruition, says Pétur Örn Þórarinsson. But, this foretaste makes us want to believe it. With its crafting system and solid technique (with a delightful atmosphere at the Skyrim), Pax Dei provides us with just the concrete stuff we need to let our imagination work. If you close your eyes, it’s easy to imagine hundreds of cities, from hamlets to the largest kingdoms, and players in a variety of roles, from farmer to ghoul slayer in a dungeon! Because here, Mainframe Industries promises us a world where everyone can find their way without worrying about a “level cap”. A dream project, yes, but one that seems to be coming to life.