Given recent news about the MMO industry, it’s completely understandable that some of you may be wondering what the future holds for Pax Dei. We’ve seen your questions and concerns, and we feel it’s important to address them as directly and transparently as possible, while also sharing where we’re headed.

“Are you going to shut down as other studios have recently?”

No. We still have a small, but very passionate, hard-working team working on Pax Dei, and we intend to continue delivering updates regularly.

Let’s be transparent: yes, we’ve had rough moments. Being an independent studio means we rely on a mix of external investment and, increasingly, revenue from the game itself to pay for the ongoing development of Pax Dei. We’ve had to adjust our team size and limit our scope accordingly. 

Since we left Early Access, we’ve been balancing our long-term vision for the game alongside player feedback, and tackling some genuinely tough problems to make sure the game has a stable foundation, technically, operationally, and in terms of the content we’re able to offer.

We understand that progress can sometimes feel slow from the outside. But as long as we have our players' support, our intention is to keep building Pax Dei and delivering on the features we’ve showcased in the past, even if it sometimes takes longer than we, or many players, would like.

Support comes in many forms, and not all of them involve paying money. You can support by:

Sharing feedback and testing new content on the Public Test Shard

Engaging with our posts and updates on Discord and social media

And ultimately, of course, the most direct way to support us, for those who want and are able to, is by purchasing Memberships (plots, Premium, etc.)

All of these matter, especially for a small studio like ours.

“Well, I like the game, but I’m not ready to pay.”

You don’t need a subscription to enjoy Pax Dei. You can join a Clan, contribute to the community, and enjoy the game without your own plot. If you want your own home and play regularly, you can maintain one plot with Grace, which allows you to enjoy the full experience by purchasing the base game alone. Simply being part of the world and its community already helps more than you might think.

“What about the features we’ve been asking for?”

We know this is a sensitive topic, so let’s address some of these features.

: these features were mentioned before Early Access in interviews and Q&As. Their absence from the game so far is due to two main reasons:

First, both farming and fishing primarily add new content loops to the cooking system, and the current state of cooking is not where we want it to be yet. Introducing new resource loops now would only amplify existing balance issues, which doesn’t make sense at this stage.

Second, both systems require significant development, and we haven’t yet been able to allocate the necessary time to them.

That said, the crafting skills related to cooking and potions are next in line for rebalancing. This means we’re very close to removing the main balancing blocker for these features.

: we shared an early concept for mounts last year, but the feature is still a long way from being ready. While the overall design is now complete and some technical challenges have already been addressed, there is still significant work ahead.

We need to implement the gameplay systems themselves, improve animations, particularly those related to the rider, and ensure mounts persist correctly across zones. As we’ve mentioned before, we want horses to be more than a simple movement-speed bonus. This means dedicating time from several team members to build meaningful content and systems around them, even for the initial version you’ll see in-game.

: last summer, recycling was a high priority. Since then, priorities have shifted to address more urgent needs. We know how important recycling is to many of you, and we agree. However, at the moment, we simply don’t have the bandwidth to actively work on it. 

That said, we are continuing to refine the design and hope to have something ready to ship later in the year. In the meantime, the upcoming crafting balance changes in the next update aims to significantly reduce crafting waste. You’ll no longer need to grind a small, specific set of items to maximize XP gains, which we believe will greatly reduce the need for recycling in the short term. Our next step on that front will be to look into failed crafts and reduce material costs.

With the game and the team we have right now, our priority is clear: it makes far more sense to improve, fix, and strengthen what already exists than to keep expanding outward with new zones, biomes, or professions.

For most of this year, our focus will be on making Pax Dei more meaningful rather than simply making it bigger. That means going deeper into existing systems, addressing long-standing friction points, and delivering quality-of-life improvements that make the game more coherent and enjoyable day-to-day. You can already see this direction with XP rebalancing on the PTS, as well as the work we’ve started on Cooking, Jewelcrafting, and Alchemy (with plans to review Fletching as well).

Rather than spreading the team too thin, we want to strengthen the game's foundations so that future additions are built on solid ground.

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: a major pillar of this effort is building. Player feedback has been very clear: the building system is amazing, but its impact is currently mostly aesthetic. We want construction to matter more, not just as decoration, but as a meaningful part of gameplay and social life in Pax Dei.

Building isn’t only about placing structures. It’s about creating places where communities gather, trade, roleplay, and leave a lasting mark on the world. Our goal is to reinforce the building system as the backbone of villages and cities, so future features feel richer and more connected.

: to support this vision, we’re working on several interconnected systems. Alongside ongoing crafting professions rebalancing, we’re introducing mechanics that tie gameplay benefits directly to well-designed structures: systems like Comfort and Rest with crafting bonuses influenced by roofs and layouts. Together, these changes aim to make where and how you build just as important as what you build.

: at the same time, we’ve been spending a lot of time designing Alliances. Our goal is to make Alliances meaningful for all types of players, not just PvP-focused groups, but also Clans who want to build villages and cities together. To achieve that, Alliances need purpose beyond PvP flagging alone, which means introducing supporting mechanics before Alliances themselves go live.

A key part of making this work is giving players better control over access and trust. That’s why we’re finally revamping the permission system. Clans will support customizable membership tiers, each tied to specific roles and permissions. Plot and item access will be more granular, including the ability to define Trusted Friends with elevated rights. The new system is also designed to be safer and more forgiving, with clearer presets and stricter deletion rules, making it easier to welcome new members without fear of losing property or progress. We’ll go into more detail once this reaches the Public Test Shard.

the image hereunder is a UI mockup and is subject to change. We will talk more about it once it is functional, but we wanted to show you how granular we want it to be. Here you can see the Plot Permissions section with its two tabs: one for the Plot itself (building, destroying), and one for the items on the Plot (crafters, storages, decorations, etc.).

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These are long-term goals, and they are only possible if the underlying systems are strong.

This is the direction we’re committed to: stronger foundations, deeper systems, and a world that becomes more meaningful the more you invest in it.

“This all sounds great. What’s the timeline then?”

As we speak, Verse 5 is growing with new content, including Master Crafting, new emotes, UI updates, and more. This update also includes significant rebalancing of crafting XP across most professions, aimed at making crafting progression much more pleasant overall. This content is currently being tested on the Public Test Shard (Arcadia) and should reach live shards in the coming weeks.

After Verse 5, we’ll be moving to Verse 6 (surprising, right?). Verse 6 will focus on building, the comfort system, and permissions. As part of this planning, we made the difficult decision to move Alliances to later in the year, in Verse 7. This allows us to properly lay the foundations first, rather than introducing Alliances before the supporting systems are ready.

Alongside these major features, we also plan to roll out smaller, nice-to-have features and systems throughout the year. Here’s what’s simmering in our magical cauldron: the much-anticipated duelling system, additional building sets, a cooking and food glow-up, and more improvements for Jewelcrafting and Alchemy, combat improvements and PvE content fixes. We’ll also be adding birds, not just ambient “chirp-chirp” ones, but wildlife that can be hunted and that will be tied directly to fletching. And, of course, a few surprises we’re not ready to reveal just yet.

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We remain fully committed to Pax Dei. We’re proud of what we’ve built so far, aware of what still needs work, and grateful for a community that continues to challenge, support, and believe in the project.

Thank you for reading and for sticking with us.
Pax vobiscum,
The Mainframe Team

Future of Pax Dei - A Letter From the Team

 Hello Paxians, Given recent news about the MMO industry, it’s completely understandable that some of you may be wondering what the future holds for P...

We’re hard at work on the next content update, which we already teased in our retrospective. We plan to deploy it on our 

Public Test Shard, Arcadia, in the next couple of weeks

. Rather than introducing entirely new systems, this update refines how existing features feel, look, and connect, to make everyday play smoother, more readable, and more expressive. Let’s dive into the details.

Two of the most requested features from our latest poll relate to crafting, and we’ve already made good progress on both. Work is still ongoing, however, and these changes may not be included in the first round of testing on the PTS.

Crafting is being refined to feel more rewarding and better balanced. 

, exceptionally successful crafts on items with Item Power can 

permanently boost that item’s power and record your name as its master crafter,

 giving standout creations a lasting sense of identity. The Item Power boost is additive with any Enchantment applied to the item, meaning that with Master Crafting, the best possible gear will be rare variants that have been both Master Crafted and Enchanted.

We’re aware that this mechanic does not apply to items with no Item Power, such as foods and potions, and we’ll be exploring ways to add meaningful “exceptional success” mechanics for those professions in a later update.

a major rebalancing pass is being applied to crafting XP for five main professions

: Leatherworking, Weapon Smithing, Tailoring, Blacksmithing, and Armor Smithing. This update adjusts how much experience each item grants to make progression smoother, more consistent, and more rewarding overall.

Importantly, this change is not a nerf to crafting XP. Instead, XP is being rebalanced so that

 recipes that are more expensive to craft grant more experience

, better reflecting the effort and resource investment involved. Cheaper recipes will continue to provide viable progression, while more complex, resource-intensive crafts will now feel appropriately rewarding.

final items will grant more XP than intermediary components

, encouraging players to complete full crafting chains. 

: because the profession relies heavily on crafting intermediary components as a core part of its gameplay loop, these intermediary items will continue to provide strong XP rewards to ensure Blacksmithing progression remains smooth and satisfying.

 the recipe level distribution is being reworked

, so players gain access to useful, viable items more consistently as they level, rather than being constrained by rigid progression gates. This should significantly reduce the number of crafts that feel wasted or inefficient.

we are not changing the leveling curve itself

—only how much XP individual crafts grant.

Finally, while this pass focuses on these five professions, 

other professions will be added when they’re ready. They are currently undergoing a deeper rework

, which requires additional time to get right.

Talking, coordinating, and expressing yourself are becoming more intuitive. 

 for party management, chat, clans, and emotes make it easier to interact quickly, especially when timing matters.

Characters are also gaining more personality. 

 like Insult, Show Respect, Let’s Go!, and Call Out expand non-verbal communication, while a new Moods tab allows you to select a persistent facial expression. Your chosen mood stays active until changed, and 

emotes now include basic facial animation 

that can be subtly altered by combining them with different moods. Note that this is still WIP and might not make it to the next round of testing right away. 

Character Menu: Cleaner, Clearer, more Useful

to better support moment-to-moment play. It now lives in a right-hand side panel, aligning with broader UX plans and improving consistency across menus. Detailed information appears in floating tooltips when hovering over or selecting elements, keeping the interface readable without overwhelming the screen.

The Equipment tab no longer takes control of the camera and instead displays your character directly in the menu

, along with your name and average Item Power. Selecting an equipment slot now shows only the items that fit it, reducing unnecessary friction. The Stats UI has been expanded into a full tab with additional stats and unique icons, and the Skills tab has been moved from the Journal into the Character Menu to keep all character-related information in one place.

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Clan tools are also getting a clarity pass.

 The Clan Menu now uses the same right-hand side panel layout and tooltip system as the Character Menu. Players without a clan will see options to join or create one, while clan members gain clearer access to announcements, member lists, and applicants.

Clan settings, such as heraldry changes and leaving or disbanding a clan, have been moved to the top-right corner of the menu. Permission changes are not included in this update, but they remain a high-priority feature for the future.

A broad visual pass improves how resources appear across biomes. 

Many small or low-profile resources have been converted into larger clusters, while others have been resized

recolored, or reworked to stand out more clearly from surrounding foliage.

 Non-interactive plants have been toned down to reduce visual noise, and some resources have been fully recreated to improve overall quality.

The goal is simple: make it easier to spot what matters without losing the world's natural feel. The end result is that finding resources that used to be extremely hard to spot is now easier, while you’ll still be able to gather more by building knowledge and skill on where to find resources and exactly how to spot them.

 with focused profiling aimed at improving render performance during combat. The intention is to make intense encounters feel smoother and more responsive. This update includes fixes for several rendering performance issues discovered when profiling issues reported by the player community.

This upcoming update is all about refinement. By improving readability, usability, expression, and performance, it brings Pax Dei a step closer to the experience it’s aiming to be: cohesive, immersive, and rewarding in the details. We plan to deploy this update on our Public Test Shard, Arcadia, very soon - aka in the coming weeks - with several stages of testing. As usual, we’ll make adjustments as needed based on relevant feedback. 

Keep an eye on the official channels for the details that should be communicated pretty soon!

A Small Update with a Big Impact

 Hello Paxians, We’re hard at work on the next content update, which we already teased in our retrospective. We plan to deploy it on our  Public Test ...

Wir sind all unseren Spielern sehr dankbar, insbesondere unseren Abonnenten, die Pax Deis weitere Entwicklung erst möglich machen. Als Zeichen unserer Dankbarkeit und zur Feier des neuen Jahres 

gibt es im kommenden Monat für alle Abschlüsse oder Erneuerungen eines Mitgliedschafts-Abos 400 Gnade gratis dazu

Vom 20. Januar bis zum 19. Februar werden den Accounts der Spieler, die ein Mitgliedschafts-Abo abschließen oder erneuern, 400 Gnade gutgeschrieben. Verlängere damit dein Gnadengrundstück um einen Monat, gib sie für Schnellreisen aus oder wirke andere Wunder – ganz wie du möchtest!

Kaufe oder erneuere ein beliebiges Mitgliedschafts-Abo.

Für jeden Abschluss und jede Erneuerung werden deinem Account 400 Gnade (pro Serverregion) hinzugefügt.

Du erhältst 400 Gnade pro Serverregion, unabhängig davon, ob du dort einen Charakter hast oder nicht. Das sind insgesamt 1.200 Gnade, verteilt auf drei Serverregionen (NA, EU und SEA).

Wann wird mir der Gnadenbonus gutgeschrieben?

Die Gnade wird deinem Konto in dem Moment gutgeschrieben, in dem du die Transaktion abschließt (neues Abo oder Erneuerung). 

Kaufe oder erneuere zwischen dem 20. Januar und dem 19. Februar 2026 ein beliebiges Mitgliedschafts-Abo

Was, wenn ich bereits eine aktive Mitgliedschaft habe?

Dann erhältst du die Gnade nächsten Monat, sobald sich dein Abo erneuert.

Was, wenn ich auf meinem Account mehrere aktive Mitgliedschafts-Abos habe?

Gnade kann für einige wichtige Aktionen im Spiel verwendet werden, darunter:

der Erhalt eines Grundstücks für einen Monat (400 Gnade),

das Wirken von Wundern, beispielsweise der Schnellreise (drücke T, um auf das Wundermenü zuzugreifen),

das Einsetzen von Segen, darunter Segen fürs Sammeln und für Berufe.

Weitere Informationen zu Wundern und Segen gibt es in unserem 

Eine Neujahrsüberraschung für all unsere Abonnenten

 Hallo, Paxianer!  Wir sind all unseren Spielern sehr dankbar, insbesondere unseren Abonnenten, die Pax Deis weitere Entwicklung erst möglich machen. ...

Have friends you’ve been meaning to bring into Pax Dei? Or curious clanmates still sitting on the fence?

 is the perfect moment to welcome them into Gallia.

From January 19, 6 pm UTC to January 26, 6 pm UTC,

 new players will be able to play Pax Dei for free on Steam, directly on the live worlds, alongside you and the rest of the community.

During the Free Week, players will receive temporary access to 

They’ll be able to build, craft, explore, and adventure exactly like regular players and join your Clan and adventures!

Accessing Pax Dei and playing for free during the Steam Free Week is pretty easy: your friends will just need to select the free version of the game from our Steam store page, available from January 19 to January 26.

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Once the Free Week ends, players who wish to continue their journey can purchase 

Pax Dei base game, available at a -40% discount until February 2 on 

Free Week players will also receive a 2-days grace period

 (up to Jan. 28, 6 pm UTC) after the event to purchase the base game and 

If they choose not to acquire the base game right away:

Their plot(s)will be removed from the world,

All crafted items, materials, and character progress will be safely stored.

their character and everything they crafted will be waiting for them in their Redeeming queue

. They’ll simply need to find a new place to rebuild.

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Now’s the time to open your doors, light the hearth fires, and invite your friends and new travelers to join you in the vast world of Pax Dei.

Steam Free Week is incoming: invite your friends to Pax Dei 

 Hello Paxians, Have friends you’ve been meaning to bring into Pax Dei? Or curious clanmates still sitting on the fence? Steam Free Week  is the perfe...

We hope you had a nice start to the year, exploring the world of Gallia and having fun in Lyonesse, while crafting lovely little Yule goats.

We wanted to follow up on some important points that have been discussed over the past weeks within the community.

The issue affecting the spawn of the Mournel trees in the NA region took some time to be fully identified, and as a fix was deployed yesterday on the live shards, the situation should now be back to normal.

Our team continues to work on resolving the issues with NPCs spawns that are not working as intended, as well as an issue with players getting stuck in the shrines when TPing to them, and doors in the PvP area that can be opened by non-clan members. We expect to have fixes in the coming days. In addition, we are still investigating the issues reported regarding the in-game chat and should be able to provide an update pretty soon. 

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As mentioned in the retrospective, one of our plans is to have valley-wide markets in the near future. We understand this feature is controversial and have read the feedback thoroughly. This is why we have decided to postpone the deployment of this feature and prioritize other elements. We will revisit it and explore how we can adjust it to better appeal to a wider audience.

Nonetheless, we want to explain the reasoning behind the feature, so you understand it’s not coming out of nowhere and has a real benefit.

We realize that the current market system doesn’t work for new players. Participation relies on hidden knowledge and prime stall locations near Petra Dei, making it hard to know what to trade, how to sell effectively, or even whether using the market is worth it. As a result, many new players never meaningfully engage with the economy at all.

The change we wanted to make by turning the markets valley-wide isn’t about slower progress but non-participation. Lowering friction is about converting non-participants into participants, which is essential for a healthy MMO population. Market health depends on liquidity: how easy it is to buy and sell. While geography and distance should matter for production and regional advantage, they shouldn’t prevent transactions themselves. Requiring travel to individual stalls causes many sales to never happen, eliminates impulse purchases, and makes low-value goods not worth listing or buying, which especially hurts new players.

The change would not remove geography and, in some cases, would strengthen it by making regional advantages more valuable. We think it would also prevent abusive behavior like listing items at inaccessible stalls. Overall, we feel that allowing purchases within a market area would turn latent demand into real transactions, increase participation, and create a healthier, more resilient player-driven economy for everyone.

Now, we understand this isn't what most of you expect, so, as mentioned above, we’ll put the development on hold for now.

We know this is a hot topic, and something that’s highly requested. We already said we’re working on it, and we’re making this a priority for the next Verse.

Our plans are to add more ranks to the Clans, with the possibility of defining different permission levels for each rank. We are also looking into the possibility of allowing the Clan Alderman to rename the ranks to make it more immersive.  

We should be ready to share more on this when we get closer to Verse 6 timing. 

Last but not least, we know you’re quite eager to see where the game is going and what’s cooking: we should have an updated timeline for the first half of the year in the coming weeks, with more details on what’s coming for Pax Dei.

New Year Statement from Pax Dei Dev Team (auf Englisch)

 Hello Paxians, We hope you had a nice start to the year, exploring the world of Gallia and having fun in Lyonesse, while crafting lovely little Yule ...

As 2025 comes to a close, we want to take a moment to reflect on a year that was both challenging and transformative for Pax Dei. Together with you, builders, adventurers, crafters, and explorers, we brought our game from Early Access all the way to its full release (1.0) in October.

This milestone represents more than a version number. It marks the beginning of a long-term journey for Pax Dei as a living MMO.

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From Early Access to 1.0: A Landmark Shift

Pax Dei – 2025 Developer Retrospective

 Greetings Paxians! As 2025 comes to a close, we want to take a moment to reflect on a year that was both challenging and transformative for Pax Dei. ...

Information

Future of Pax Dei - A Letter From the Team

A Small Update with a Big Impact

Eine Neujahrsüberraschung für all unsere Abonnenten

Steam Free Week is incoming: invite your friends to Pax Dei

New Year Statement from Pax Dei Dev Team (auf Englisch)

Pax Dei – 2025 Developer Retrospective

Verse 5 is on its way! (auf englisch)

Work in Progress, upcoming small features and fixes (auf englisch)

Einstellung des Pax-Dei-Launchers

Interview with the devs on the future of Pax Dei (auf englisch)