Pax Dei is a sandbox survival MMO set in the medieval era where you and thousands of other players can carve out your own legend in the wild countryside. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Pax Dei Review Overview
What is Pax Dei ?
Pax Dei is a self-proclaimed "social" sandbox MMO where hundreds of players can carve out their own legend across the rich countryside of a medieval setting. Players can gather resources, build bases, craft new weapons and armor, and head out on adventures with their own parties to discover what else the land has to offer.
Featuring a distinct focus on neighborly cooperation, social interaction, base-building, and crafting, Pax Dei offers hundreds of hours of sandbox survival fun for single-player and multiplayer arrangements alike.
Pax Dei features:
⚫︎ Mastery-based crafting system
⚫︎ Land-claiming and base-building mechanics
⚫︎ Single-player and party-based open-world combat.
⚫︎ Massive online multiplayer cooperation
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Pax Dei's gameplay and story.
 Steam |
$39.99 |
Pax Dei Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Distinct Visual Style Tolerable With Multiplayer |
Glacial Pacing Poor Combat Mechanics Clunky and Unfun |
Pax Dei Overall Score - 52/100
Pax Dei is an unfinished game that was released way earlier than it should have. There simply aren’t enough features set in stone for this game to be entertaining. What we have now isn’t a game, it’s a loose set of experimental features that miss the mark entirely. Far too clunky and unfun for its own good, Pax Dei is not off to a great start, but I wouldn’t count it out just yet.
Pax Dei Story - 5/10
Pax Dei barely has any story to speak of apart from what you can gather from the environment. It’s hard to pin down exactly what’s supposed to happen in terms of story, but that just comes with being a sandbox MMO. Having no story is better than having a bad one, at least.
Pax Dei Gameplay - 4/10
Pax Dei’s gameplay is needlessly frustrating, incredibly clunky, and, at times, seemingly actively working against you. The crafting is not at all gratifying and the base-building is more grind than payoff. The combat is atrocious and the game generally lacks any fun value. It’s not unsalvageable as it does have a few good ideas strewn about this tangled mess of mechanics, but as it is now, you’re better off buying this a year after release.
Pax Dei Visuals - 7/10
Pax Dei’s visuals are quite impressive, showcasing a distinct late-medieval to early-renaissance style throughout its many assets. The game is graphically stunning, with landscapes that look good from nearly any angle. However, it suffers from a lack of variety and often appears to be made from marketplace assets. While objectively eye-catching, it falls short in terms of personality and artistry.
Pax Dei Audio - 6/10
Pax Dei’s audio is mostly inoffensive and leans closer to good compared to most sandbox MMO games. While there aren’t any voiced lines and the music is just so-so, the sound effects are well done, albeit a bit repetitive.
Pax Dei Value for Money - 4/10
This game is simply not worth the $40 it’s asking for. Sure, it can offer you over a hundred hours of limitless sandbox MMO fun, but you’d be lucky to enjoy a tenth of that time with how needlessly clunky this game is. There’s some multiplayer fun to be had, but certainly not enough of it to warrant that price tag.
Pax Dei Review (Early Access): Needs Another Dei in the Oven
I have a lot to say about this game, and not much of it is flattering, so let’s dive right in. This game feels like it was released way too early in its development. Yes, it’s in Early Access, but even so, it seems far too raw for that stage. Too many aspects are unfinished, and problems keep cropping up whenever I dig deeper into the mechanics. The more I explore, the messier it gets. So, let's look beyond its AAA graphics and examine why I believe this game was released prematurely.
First off, despite its stunning graphics, Pax Dei has a "fresh out of the box" feel that’s hard to pinpoint. Everything looks homogenous, and the assets evoke a sterile vibe when examined closely, almost as if they were pieced together from default engine assets or cheap marketplace models. Whether that's the case or the art team simply missed the mark, I can’t say, but something feels off about Pax Dei’s presentation, no matter how objectively beautiful it is.
This soulless sterility extends to the game’s audio somewhat, although I’m willing to chalk that up to the game’s lack of voice acting. To its credit, there isn’t much opportunity for dialogue in a survival sandbox MMO, but the odd remark or two would help cut through the monotony of a thousand players chopping trees and picking up stones.
If the game’s visuals and audio brought unease, its gameplay brought disappointment and frustration. Quite simply, Pax Dei is not fun, and on some occasions, it feels like the game itself is working against you. From questionable game design choices to a lack of polish, Pax Dei’s gameplay is weighed down by a multitude of different factors, the least of which is its odd crafting system.
If you thought gathering the requisite materials for a crafting recipe was all you’d need to craft something in Pax Dei, you’d be dead wrong. Pax Dei has a mastery-based crafting system where your proficiency in a certain type of crafting determines your chances of success. This can range from "Trivial" to "Challenging" depending on your skill level and failing to craft something will lose you most of the materials. I won’t sugarcoat it, this was an awful idea. Not only does this system undermine the principles of build-up and payoff that crafting relies on as a game mechanic, but it also requires a tense, 5-second animation to play whenever there’s a toss-up between success and failure.
To make matters worse, this game has a tiered crafting system where some craftable components are required to create others, and—you guessed it—you’re going to have to roll the dice every single time. This makes a crafting session take forever while also making it a gambling session. Getting home from an exploration doesn’t guarantee success anymore because you can potentially lose all of your materials through RNG, which, for a survival game savant like myself, is one of the worst feelings ever.
Remember, that’s the least of this game’s problems gameplay-wise so let’s move on to the next. Base-building in this game is…weird. I’ll say that the resource requirements for each individual wall, floor, and foundation piece are a bit high, but that’s nothing a few balance patches can’t fix. The main issue with the game’s base-building is how annoying and inaccessible it is. First off, the action of crafting and setting down any building piece is linked to a specific tool instead of just being a feature, so I’m docking points for that.
Secondly, other things like furniture, storage, and decorations, despite being crafted separately from building pieces, can’t be set down from the inventory. Instead, you need to bring up the building menu via the tool I mentioned and set it down from there. Combine that ease-of-use mess with the game’s weirdly RNG-based crafting system, and you’ve got quite the ordeal on your hands just to put down a single storage chest. It’s like trying to build a house in real life except you don’t know how to and you keep losing your tools.
This crapshoot of a system extends to resource gathering because there isn’t much distinction between the various resources scattered around the world, at least not immediately. You need to stand near one and wait for a stylized pop-up to tell you what it is before you can pick it. It’s not the most disrupting thing ever but forget about scouting for supplies from afar if this doesn’t get changed. There also isn’t a clear indication of what is and isn’t a harvestable resource especially when it comes to rocks. Some boulders are just part of the landscape, not that you’d ever be able to tell without getting within 2 inches of its hitbox.
Don’t even get me started on this game’s combat. It’s bland, it’s janky, and there’s nothing fun about it. Never mind the poor damage balancing and the weird hitboxes, I want to see better animations and better hit regs than what the game is showing now. I can barely tell if my attacks are landing, much more my opponent’s. There also isn’t much about the combat system that pops out to me. All it has is weapon proficiencies and increasing weapon tiers, but that’s about it. If this game’s devs eventually improve its crafting and base-building in a future update, I hope they give its combat some love too.
And therein lies the problem with Pax Dei. Everything I’ve said up to this point reeks of early development woes, from the questionable but novel crafting system to the clunky…everything else. Usually, a lot of these issues would’ve been smoothed out already, even if the game was still in early access. Beta tests, demos, and many other means of playtesting are available, but the game’s current state leads me to question if they were utilized.
Pax Dei isn’t a bad game in the strictest sense, it is simply an unfinished product presented way too early. It’s not good to deny any potential improvements it can have but it’s also bad practice to let bad game design pass simply because the game is in Early Access. Pax Dei has a few major overhauls to get through before it can be considered a passable game. For now, though, it’s simply too early.
Pros of Pax Dei
| Things Pax Dei Got Right |
|---|
|
Distinct Visual Style Tolerable With Multiplayer |
Distinct Visual Style
I mentioned how oddly sterile this game’s visuals are but it wouldn’t be fair to dismiss how good it looks despite that. The landscape is enchanting and the UI has this distinctly minimalist art-deco style that works really well with the game’s largely medieval vibes. The building assets aren’t that special, but they’re passable, and so are the character models. Give it a few more updates and this game could knock your socks off.
Tolerable With Multiplayer
As unfun, grindy, and clunky as this game is in single-player, I think it’ll be somewhat tolerable in multiplayer. More people certainly won’t fix this game’s main shortcomings, but the grind us much more tolerable when there are more hands at work. It also makes the "social" aspect of the game more prominent, as I feel that it’s very underutilized otherwise.
Cons of Pax Dei
| Things That Pax Dei Can Improve |
|---|
|
Glacial Pacing Poor Combat Mechanics Clunky and Unfun |
Glacial Pacing
Sandbox survivals aren’t known for their fast pacing but Pax Dei’s is something else entirely. Its glacial pacing is mostly a consequence of its clunky crafting and base-building mechanics. The fact that collecting resources and crafting new items could legitimately just fail and amount to nothing is certainly not doing this game’s pacing any favors.
Poor Combat Mechanics
This game’s combat mechanics are barebones at best and unfun at worst, with awful balancing and uninspired mechanics. You get nothing to work with apart from weapon proficiencies and upgradable gear, which, together, only amount to bigger numbers and no additional variety. Weapon skills mix things up a bit, but they’re about as default as it can get, with big stabs and wide swings being the long and short of it.
Clunky and Unfun
The game’s lack of polish and general clunkiness is my main gripe about its quality and it’s clear that we’re still in the experimental stage of its development. I don't see this rough exterior changing anytime soon unless the developers make a significant breakthrough in their game design. So, for now, be prepared for unfulfilling grinds, questionable crafting, and needlessly tedious base-building.
Is Pax Dei Worth It?
Absolutely Not, Not Right Now
Sandbox survival MMOs can offer great value with their extended playtimes and diverse mechanics but Pax Dei falls short of expectations. Currently, it’s not worth the $40 price tag, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. While there’s some multiplayer fun to be found, it doesn’t make up for the fact that the game still has a long way to go in development before it's worth even half of what it's asking.
| Platform | Price |
|---|---|
| Steam |
$39.99 |
Pax Dei FAQ
What Languages Does Pax Dei Support?
According to the game’s developers, Pax Dei only supports English localizations in its current build, but plans are currently being made to include French and German support.
How Long Do Player Plots Last in Pax Dei?
"Plots" are player-claimed areas of land where each player can build their base and process their materials. Barring a few major overhauls that require players to reset their progress, claimed plots and plots granted by the Founder’s Packs will be available for the entirety of the game’s Early Access period.
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Pax Dei Product Information
 |
|
| Title | PAX DEI |
|---|---|
| Release Date | June 18, 2024 (Early Access) |
| Developer | Mainframe Industries |
| Publisher | Mainframe Industries, New Tales |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam, Launcher) |
| Genre | Role-playing, Action, Survival |
| Number of Players | Massive Online Multiplayer |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Pax Dei Website |
