On Wednesday the European team at ‘Mainframe Industries’ revealed their MMO PAX DEI, a vast, social sandbox MMO inspired by the legends of the medieval era boasting a stunningly visual, all running in Unreal Engine 5.

According to MAINFRAME:

The vision of a living fantasy world inspired by the traditions & legends of the medieval era. Here, myths are real, ghosts exist, and magic is unquestioned. In your home valley, life is relatively safe and peaceful. As you venture out into the wider world, however, things begin to change. The further you travel from home, the stranger things get. Anything becomes possible.

Our belief in human interaction as the ultimate source of fun. The most memorable game experiences are the ones you share with friends. That’s why we’re building Pax Dei as a sandbox, where players are free to set their own goals. And we’re doing it at true MMO scale. The result is an open-world playground where you can build your home, create a thriving village with your friends, and engage with thousands of other players to make this world your own. We can’t wait to see the stories that will come to life.
Mainframe Industries

Pax Dei allows you to immerse yourself in an open-world playground, where you can choose the role you want to play. Pax Dei lets you explore the land, build your home, forge your reputation, and craft your own stories. Quite typical for any MMO out there. However, from listening to the team, it seems their focus will be trying to appeal to both casual and hardcore players. Most people will hear that and think this means the game will be barebones, however, tapping into the casual market is vital for any MMO to succeed, especially in this age, where MMO tend to wither away after the initial launch. It’s also a plus that the studio is making a game that they want to play so there’s no shortage of passion for the development.

Part of the appeal of this game is the sandbox aspect, as everything in this world will be produced by the players’ hands and skills. So from what I gather, as long as you are in a land protected by the Divine you can build a house. That sounds ambitious o be honest so I’ll put a pin on it until I see it in action. Your village needs clothes, walls, food, flowers, and prayers. Your Clan, weapons, and armor. Others require tools, materials, or mysterious reagents. Essentially, PAX DEI focuses on trying to make every role and class viable and important. So if you’d like to be Blackmsmith and produce weapons for your server or a farmer, you can be that and still be viable and useful. Of course, it also needs to be fun too. Aside from the visual, which is amazing, the gameplay is one that I felt needs a lot of work, as the brief combat that I saw in the trailer and dev video did not spark a sense of hope for me. Well, since they literally just announced it, they got plenty of time to make the combat more impactful. However, it cannot be as rough as what they showed in the final product. To me, the attack didn’t even seem like they were impacting the mob at all.

Aside from that if I were to compare Pax Dei to its peers, I would say that Pax Dei is high-fantasy MMO with traits from ArchAge, Elder Scroll, Black Desert, and Ashes of Creation, all built with Unreal Engine 5. As mentioned, just like its peers, it boasts impressive lighting and materials interaction, with cloth rippling realistically and hair bouncing fluidly. I hope that the character creation is expansive and rich, allowing you to be yourself in this high fantasy world. You can sign up for the early access at their website and join in the discussion on Mainframe’s Discord.