New MMORPG Pax Dei criticized for $100 launch edition and early access woes

New MMORPG Pax Dei is off to a rough start on Steam. Players aren’t happy about the overall pricing, state of the game, and a plethora of bugs and glitches impeding the experience. Developer Mainframe Industries has already issued a few fixes though, and the team is aware of more problems that it plans to get rid of in the near future.

As of publication, Pax Dei is sitting at ‘Mixed’ on Steam, with just 43% of the 551 user reviews rating it positively. The social sandbox MMORPG wants to give users a world completely run by player-driven economics across a massive map, but the overall state of the Steam Early Access launch and the pricing options have left players unimpressed.

“I hope things will improve, and the devs will get lots of things fixed,” ‘Spryte’ says on Steam. “Because right now, it feels like a shitshow. Lag, building things that won’t place but items are removed from your inventory, difficulty in finding basic building mats – and the thing that really is rather upsetting is the game costs $40.00.”

The pricing is a common complaint among Pax Dei players, as the $40 version gets you one plot of land to build a homestead on, while the $60 version gives you two, and the $100 version gives you four. This is on top of a planned subscription model for when the MMO comes out of early access in 2025.

Many players are also reporting that Pax Dei feels too buggy and unfinished, even by Steam Early Access standards. “Incredible for a game in such an early state to have such a god-awful launch. Literally nothing works. Even if it did, this is a barebones unreal engine asset pack and not an actual game,” user ‘Rizzler’ adds.

Not everyone has been so hard on Pax Dei of course, as others see the potential in building up your own homestead surrounded by other players. “Has lots of potential, but at the moment it is only the skeleton of what could be,” ‘masterdmd’ writes. “If you want to be a part of the journey and give feedback along the way I highly recommend trying it out. If you want something more complete and polished then do not buy it in its current state.”

Mainframe does note on its website that the pricing model could change depending on player feedback during early access, though. “We’re still [a while] away from the full release of Pax Dei, and we want to use the time ahead to see how players engage with the game and hear from the community before we lock the model,” Mainframe writes. “Please wait for more details before forging yourself a strong opinion on our monetization model and systems.”

In a Discord update from today, Wednesday June 19, Mainframe notes that the first day of early access has been “a tad hectic,” while outlining the issues it has fixed and what it’s aware of. The placing and removing plot problems and lag issues when crafting have been fixed, but the ongoing log-in problems and inability to invite people to clans or parties are still being looked at.

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