Mainframe Industries finally pulled the veil back on its upcoming “cloud native” MMORPG this morning. Enter Pax Dei, which aims to bring players to the eponymous fantasy and medieval-inspired world, complete with social sandbox, player-driven economy, and emergent gameplay.
Helmed by industry veterans who have worked on titles such as EVE Online, World of Warcraft, Quantum Break and more, Pax Dei is inspired by the mythologies that took root in the medieval era of our world. The team, which is based out of Iceland, Finland, and France, aims to bring the experience its developers have had building some of the most emergent and player-driven sandboxes in MMORPG history.
During a press preview last week, we had the chance to see an early, hands-off demo of Pax Dei, walking through some of the core systems driving this Unreal Engine 5 MMO. A fantasy MMO, Pax Dei takes the design aesthetic of the Medieval period as sort of a jumping-off point, Mainframe CEO Thor Gunnarsson explained to me during my preview. They aren’t aiming to create a realistic depiction of the Middle Ages, but rather use it as a launch pad for the stories they want to tell, as well as the world around players that will be created.
Effectively, Pax Dei is a world where those myths and legends we believed in as people back in the Middle Ages takes form and come to life, inhabiting the world alongside the players.
The world of Pax Dei is huge, inspired by medieval Europe and the folklore that sprang from its history. As so many MMOs lean into the single-player path nowadays, needing to cater to an audience that doesn’t necessarily want to interact with the first “M” in “MMO,” Pax Dei is building a social sandbox where everything is player driven. Given some of the key developers have a history working on what is likely the biggest and most realistic social sandbox in MMORPGs, EVE Online, that DNA is felt throughout everything that was shown to me during my demo.
Upon entering the world of Pax Dei, players will encounter the Heartlands. These are locations on the map that are under the protection of the divine - the Peace of the Gods, so to speak - where players can build, form groups and venture forth into the darkness that plagues the world. While this sounds like a standard hub system, it doesn’t seem that way as seemingly these Heartlands will be scattered around the world of Pax Dei for guilds and players to claim for themselves.
Central to the Heartlands is the idea driving Pax Dei that every player matters. In a game that aims to build a completely player-driven experience, everyone from the guild leader running things in a town to the gatherer getting the raw materials for crafters to mold into their creations matters in the grand scheme of things. Thanks to the fact that there are no NPC villages in Pax Dei, those will be built instead by the players themselves.
The building in Pax Dei looks much like we’ve seen in survival MMOs since they started to hit the stage over a decade ago. Building blocks effectively snap together, allowing players to build anything from a humble shack on their claimed plot of land to elaborate villages, complete with keeps, churches (which will play a role in Pax Dei’s world), and curtain walls. In fact, the village showcased in the teaser trailer embedded above is player-made thanks to friends and family trying out the current alpha build of Pax Dei. The developers, though, provide the building blocks, but it’s the players who create the world around them.
Naturally, this means that there might end up being some competition for the best spots to build, or even spots near valuable resources that might be monopolized by player groups. Trade between villages can mitigate this some, but invariably war might break out. PvP is a key part of Pax Dei, but it’s also completely consensual - Mainframe isn’t going to force players who don’t want to partake in the feature should they opt out.
Additionally, to get around land rushes and players being unable to claim a plot of land, Pax Dei won’t be a single-shard game like EVE Online or Dual Universe, instead, it will feature multiple servers to spread it out. Additionally, Gunnarsson tells me Mainframe’s aim is to allow for up to 20,000 players per shard, so the large world of Pax Dei should be well populated with each player able to build and stake their own claim.
Venture Into Darkness
Just what is there to do in Pax Dei, though?
Like any good MMO, there’s going to be both PvP and PvE - as alluded to a few paragraphs earlier. PvE will consist of players exploring the Darkness beyond the bounds of the safe Heartlands.
The maps are, as Thor and lead game designer Pétur Örn Þórarinsson described, are huge. One Heartlands took up about a square on the map, each square sitting around 10 square kilometers. Each map was a 10x10 - so like, maths, 100 square kilometers. The Heartlands is just one part of the world.
The world itself is created using Unreal Engine 5, built on a pipeline that Mainframe Interactive has been building up over the years to effectively use procedurally aided techniques to build out the world. As Thor described to me, the map I saw, which had defined Heartlands areas marked out in red dotted border lines on the map, the pipeline effectively generates the world itself, from the trees, foliage to even the deer that roam the world.
The detail is incredible as well, from each blade of grass, to the decay apparent the farther from the Heartlands Pétur, who was piloting the Alpha preview, got from the Heartlands itself. First, though, he took us through the beginnings of a small hamlet built by alpha testers and a few of the devs. The building reminded me of ARK and Valheim especially, with building pieces predefined in the build menu where you can simply line them up and snap them together. While Pétur didn’t build the most elaborate of houses in the demo, another developer, Lee, had, and it was a charming little house. A small hamlet nearby also housed a few areas that players might find useful, from a small vineyard to grow grapes for winemaking to a friendly neighborhood blacksmithy.
Everything built in the hamlet was created by players - nothing was generated by the Mainrame team, but rather players in the testing banding together to build out the needs of those living nearby. While it might not service as a giant trading hub, it could act as a small post along the path to a giant hub for players to visit and use along a journey. Nearby was the town shown in the trailer, complete with church, which plays a functional role in Pax Dei, a castle keep built by one of the clans, as well as the wall to protect the village inhabitants. Players will also be able to create blueprints of buildings and such to sell for those players who might need a house but don’t want to spend the time building using the in-game modular system.
The world of Pax Dei is also littered with lore, hints and secrets for players to discover. It doesn’t seem as though anything is really going to be handed to players on a silver platter, meaning exploration, teamwork and more are going to be vital for players that want to excel here. One of the examples was a ring that Þórarinsson’s character held in his inventory. While it looked like a plain ring, on the underside of the gold band was an inscription - a key to learning how to get into a dungeon. Secrets like this are scattered around the world for players to naturally discover, but I was also worried that for those who deal with low visibility, seeing something a small as a ring inscription might not be possible.
Thankfully, the team is working with specialists in UX and UI design to ensure that accessibility is being worked on at every level. Þórarinsson says that is team is “very cognizant” of the fact that this is a game that is being built for people of all abilities to play, and while they couldn’t share too many details just yet as to what these types of features will look like, it’s a very big part of the team’s design focus.
Afterwards, the demo started to gear up to explore the world outside the protection of the Heartlands, with Pétur showing off the gear system. Instead of having a predefined gear set, Pax Dei seems to let you mix and match what you want to wear with your clothes, melding it all into your own personal look and style - as well as helping to dictate how you might play. Pétur donned some pretty heavy plate-style armor, though the clothing his character was wearing underneath was still visible, just blending perfectly with the suit of armor.It reminded me a bit of the armor system in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, where each piece was added onto the character separately, allowing a bevy of styles that mix armor with clothing to really express identity.
Much like MMOs such as The Elder Scrolls Online and New World, you can pretty much build your character how you’d like. The team states that you can, effectively, learn every skill in the game, and fill any role in any group, whether you’re taking on other players or the denizens of Darkness. You gain new capabilities based on the gear you’re wearing, so if you’re looking to heal you just don your healing kit, or if this time around you might act as more of a Ranger, grab your bow.
The team ventured into a small run-down house and engaged a few enemies, shadow-like creatures who hugged the nooks and crannies of the building, though didn’t pose much of a threat to the team. Combat is action-based it seems, though different builds will afford new skills and abilities. The mage with the team was slinging spells even if Pétur’s build was more straightforward - shoot arrows until it’s too close, then swap to sword and shield to finish the job. I liked the level of customization I saw in the demo and will be interested to see what kind of restrictions might be placed on it during combat - or if dungeons and other content will bar entry if the team doesn’t have the right mix of the almighty MMO trinity.
What stood out to me the most during the demo was the lighting. Leveraging Unreal Engine 5 means Mainframe can use Lumen to light the world of Pax Dei. And man are they doing so with great effect. Lumen adds a realism so many other lighting models in other engines just can't achieve, and it made some of the scenes, even through a compressed Discord stream, simply breathtaking at times.
The shadows aren’t the only creatures Pétur and his team had to deal with, as a giant Eldritch-esque horror loomed outside, seemingly impervious to the bowshots and sword blows from the adventurers. With a swoop of its massive legs, the devs were taken out, ending the demo.
Building an MMO that can be played anywhere
When Mainframe was first announced and it made clear it was working on an MMO, one of the buzzwords tossed around at the time was “cloud-native.” This was a marketing term we heard a lot from Microsoft during the initial Xbox One marketing push, but it’s not something hear much of today. We have plenty of cloud game streaming services, sure, but building an MMO from the ground up to be cloud native isn’t necessarily a selling point, more a value add if it works on one of the various platforms.
However, Pax Dei is being built this way. From the get-go, the idea was to build an MMO that could, in effect, be played on any screen and device. This doesn’t mean dumbing down the mechanics or the world to make it work on a phone or smaller device, but rather to bring the full-fat MMO experience to any screen that can stream the game.
Obviously, cloud streaming has its own set of challenges, most notably latency. And an MMO has its own fair share of latency issues if conditions aren’t perfect. But it’s something Thor mentions the team is working on from every angle to ensuring that you don’t need a sub-50 ping in order to play properly to building control schemes and design language to feel like it works natively on a touchscreen for players on a phone.
The end goal is to help further that social interaction and world-building with players by giving access to the world whether they are sitting in front of an expensive computer that won’t melt with Unreal Engine 5 turned to the max or they are sitting in a coffee shop, logging in to just do some light crafting. By giving this as an option to players, it creates less of a friction point to get them into the MMO.
All told I’m interested in what Mainframe is building with Pax Dei. It’s early, but the experience of the developers working on the MMO is on clear display with how far along the Alpha looked in our demo. I’m eager to see how it progresses leading into its launch.
There isn’t a release date given by Mainframe for Pax Dei, simply that it is “coming soon,” though there will be an Alpha held for players to jump in and check out the upcoming MMO. You can wishlist the game on Steam and sign up for the Alpha on its website.
