Pax Dei feels like a true medieval life sim as a sandbox MMO

I’ve been excited for Pax Dei since developer Mainframe Industries showed off the sandbox MMO earlier this year. As per the announcement back then, the MMORPG is preparing for an upcoming Alpha test starting on November 14. I had the opportunity to jump onto the test server a few days early and get a feel of what it would be like to live in this medieval fantasy world.

A massive open world

Nicknamed “Home Valley”, this Alpha test focuses primarily on the peaceful gameplay aspects of Pax Dei. Players can venture into one of four provinces each with 6 Heartlands valleys which are intended to be their own separate communities for players. In this test, players can create their character, choose which province and valley they want to start in, and then begin their life in Pax Dei.

After creating my character, I settled in the Kerys province in the valley called Dolavon. I immediately discovered I could pick up some resources off the ground, like stones and sticks. If you’ve played a survival game like Conan Exiles or ARK: Survival Ascended, it felt very similar. After crafting an axe, I was able to chop down a tree and upon picking up the logs unlocked a few recipes for buildings.

It took me a while to find the perfect spot I wanted to call home. I already knew my goal in Pax Dei was to carry out a long-time goal of mine: to be a blacksmith who rarely left his shop. Ever since my early days of delving into MMOs back in the early 2000s, I always thought it would be cool to play an MMO where you could just be a blacksmith, shopkeeper, or innkeeper, and be able to fully play that role while still making a difference in the game world. After speaking with the Mainframe Industries developers, it seems this is a big goal of Pax Dei: to give players the freedom to do whatever they want in this open-world medieval sandbox and feel like they have the tools to do so.

The Heartlands wasn’t built in a day

Building in Pax Dei is also similar to that in survival games like Conan Exiles. Instead of using prefab structures, the developers opted to let players build how they wanted, piece by piece. You’ll build the foundation, walls, and roofing of your buildings, then fill them with furniture, crafting stations, and other objects. Along the way, you have to gather resources to build each piece, as well as keep in mind integrity when trying to build vertically. If you want to make a multi-level structure, you have to ensure support beams and pillars are in place to support the weight.

There are a variety of gathering and crafting-focused skills already in Pax Dei, with more to come later. Cooking, Alchemy, Armorsmithing, Weaponsmithing, Blacksmithing, Tailoring, and Leatherworking are just some of the ones I dabbled with before focusing entirely on Weaponsmithing and Blacksmithing.

At first, I was able to craft everything on my own. I’d head out and mine the Iron ores needed to bring back to my base and smelt them into Iron Ingots using the ores as well as some charcoal I made from firing wood in a Charcoal Kiln. Each of these processes took some time, so in between I’d go back out and gather more resources or continue working on the design of my house.

But later Weapons were a bit more in-depth to craft. I eventually required leather bindings and tailored cloth linens to form the hilt of the weapons. Instead of a single chunk of Iron being required to forge the metals, I needed multiple pieces to all be brought together in crafting the weapon. It became easy to see why the community would be such a big part of this sandbox experience. Not only would I need to find others to sell my finished goods to, but I’d likely need to find suppliers of more intricately crafted leather and cloth goods for future weapons, not to mention potentially sourcing miners to gather the massive amount of ore required.

A bright starting point

Even though there is currently combat in Pax Dei, it’s not a focus of the current playtest. You can travel to certain areas and fight enemies for some basic loot including gold coins. That’s one of the more interesting aspects of Pax Dei. Everything in the game is player-created and player-driven. There are no vendors or quest givers in Pax Dei. Instead, each community will create its own economy based on the supplies and demands of each valley.

With no vendors to buy your goods, gold coins are only those generated by killing enemies in the wild. As such, it will truly be up to players to decide the value of things as the game world evolves around them. The premise of a truly dynamic economic system is extremely appealing in the open-world sandbox that is Pax Dei, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it shakes out.

PvP will also be a part of the experience at a later date, which can really change things up as well. While the valleys will always be peaceful environments, an area called the Wildlands connects all six valleys in each providence. Eventually, players will be able to combat each other in this area, though Mainframe Industries isn’t quite ready to reveal exactly how the PvP will work.

In its current state, the Pax Dei Alpha isn’t going to be for everybody. If you’re looking for a more traditional theme park MMO or a focus on fighting and combat, this isn’t the right place to look. But if you want to get a taste of living life by focusing on a trade skill in a medieval fantasy world, Pax Dei feels like the perfect representation of just that. I’m excited to see the area around me in the Dolavon Valley as more people join the test and get access to the game. I’m even more excited to see where Pax Dei ultimately ends up as the Mainframe Industries continues to work on the MMO. I believe in the vision they have for a truly sandbox MMO and will be there for the journey.