Is it too soon for Pax Dei to be hitting early access? We’re about to find out, as Mainframe Industries announced this morning that it’s bringing the MMORPG survival sandbox to player hands on June 18th. Yes, that’s three days before Tarisland and a coupla weeks before Dawntrail. It’s also technically still spring, which means the game will make the goal the team laid out back in January.
“Mainframe Industries, along with their co-publishing partners at New Tales, announced that their anticipated social sandbox MMO will enter Early Access on June 18th. […] Over 100,000 players took part in the latest Alpha test, aimed at testing the recent gameplay additions, along with the server infrastructure, and over 1.6M hours have been watched on stream since the reveal. The development of Pax Dei has now reached a stage where it requires a permanently live game and an active player base to progress further. […] While the game is still in Alpha and heavily in development, the foundations of Pax Dei are already in place, with a peaceful gameplay loop (gathering resources, crafting, building) inviting players to claim a home in a large, shared & persistent open world; and an adventure gameplay loop, with large areas to explore (PvE) and compete over (PvP).”
Mainframe says it expects to keep the title in early access “for at least a year” as development (and wipes) continues; the market and gold economy are the next core gameloops on deck. According to an interview on Wccftech, Mainframe is still aiming to flesh out combat, bring the game to more platforms, won’t be gating trading, will continue to limit travel, is focusing on stutter issues, and hasn’t finalized the game’s monetization plan, though it’s at least still considering subscriptions.
Preorders are live today as well: The studio is offering three packages starting at €39.99 (around $43 US). Worth noting is that the larger packages include more character slots and land, which certainly seems like a solid advantage in a sandbox title.
“The game is still in Alpha, heavily in development, and not yet feature-complete (as we write this, our teams are furiously making fixes and improvements based on the feedback of the recent public test). We also reached the point where we need to see it live to keep developing it,” the studio told Discord fans this morning. “Your feedback during Early Access will be invaluable in shaping the final game. We’ll also reinvest the revenue from Early Access into making the game better and bigger. Your support doesn’t just keep the lights on; it fuels our passion to create a vibrant, warm, and living world. […] We’ll be back in the coming days with more details about the game’s state, our roadmap for Early Access, and some early thoughts about what the first big update will focus on.”
MOP’s own Fight or Kite columnist Sam played the game back in April during one of its rolling tests and found it to lean heavily on the group-oriented collaborative content with plenty of survival crafting challenge for folks in guilds.
