Pax Nova
- April 28, 2020
- Grey Wolf Entertainment
- 5h median play time
Get on Steam"Pax Nova" is a sci-fi turn-based 4X strategy game where players establish their faction in a new world, Eos, after humanity has failed itself on Earth. Choose between several factions from three races, and engage in exploration, diplomacy, city-building, and combat on land and in space. Each planet offers unique secrets, dangers, and possibilities for colonization, adding depth and excitement to the gameplay.
PC
Windows
Reviews
- The game offers a unique blend of planetary and space gameplay, allowing for a more immersive 4X experience.
- The graphics and music are visually pleasing, enhancing the overall atmosphere of the game.
- The game has a solid foundation with interesting mechanics, such as customizable units and a diverse tech tree.
- The user interface is clunky and can be confusing, making it difficult to manage cities and units effectively.
- There are significant bugs and performance issues, including long loading times and crashes, which detract from the gameplay experience.
- The AI is often unchallenging and can lead to repetitive gameplay, as it fails to provide a meaningful threat or strategic depth.
- gameplay61 mentions
- 26 % positive mentions
- 69 % neutral mentions
- 5 % negative mentions
The gameplay of Pax Nova is characterized by a mix of intriguing concepts and poorly implemented mechanics, leading to a frustrating experience for many players. While it offers a blend of space and planetary gameplay with various systems, the inconsistency in mechanics, lack of clear documentation, and numerous bugs detract from its potential. Despite these issues, some players find the core gameplay engaging and see promise in its unique features, suggesting that with significant rebalancing and polish, it could evolve into a more enjoyable 4X strategy game.
“The gameplay is extremely addictive, with a great emphasis placed on research and expeditionary activities, encouraging the player to perform certain actions.”
“The mechanics and gameplay system designs feel pretty solid, and there is quite a bit in play feature-wise: strategic resources, city development via districts, big faction advancements with hard choices to make when it levels up, decent tech tree with special projects, changeable government types and edicts, and unit customization.”
“While this is still definitely an early access game, the core gameplay is solid and fun.”
“Wildly inconsistent mechanics; for example, forest planting sometimes has no cooldown, other times it has a 20-turn cooldown for no known reason.”
“Overall seems like it's only half finished, or at least that the core gameplay systems are not very well fleshed out.”
“The only remotely interesting things in it are the most basic game functionality ripped out of sensible game progression and tediously gated behind grinding the next turn button, while the rest consists of pointlessly incremental bonuses in a tree designed to give the illusion of choice.”
- graphics39 mentions
- 23 % positive mentions
- 67 % neutral mentions
- 10 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews, with some players appreciating the decent visuals and art style, while others criticize them as outdated and lacking polish. Many users note that the graphics are not demanding by modern standards, yet they can be unnecessarily heavy on system resources, leading to performance issues. Overall, while there are elements of beauty and potential, significant improvements in clarity and animation are needed to enhance the visual experience.
“Graphics and music are very pleasing!”
“Pax have come a long way since last year, 2 expansions, massive bug squashing and graphics revamp.”
“Nice graphics and cool art is also a plus!”
“The visuals are dull - as if someone poured water on a newspaper page.”
“Despite having graphics worthy of the PlayStation 1, the game actually has a lot to offer.”
“There is also the problem of optimization that seems troublesome as the game seems to take all my CPU at all times for such poor graphics while other games such as Civ 6 don't have such demanding power even on huge maps and with better graphics.”
- story34 mentions
- 9 % positive mentions
- 82 % neutral mentions
- 9 % negative mentions
The game's story is criticized for being disjointed and lacking depth, with many players feeling that it fails to deliver on its potential for rich lore and engaging quests. While there are some quests and a main storyline, they often feel generic and poorly integrated, leading to confusion and a lack of direction. Overall, the narrative elements need significant improvement to enhance immersion and coherence in gameplay.
“This game has a lot of potential and all of the infrastructure is there -- a great story, tons of original and potentially fun gameplay features, and enormous variety of choices for the player to make and different gameplay styles.”
“My biggest hope is that the quests play a more important role in the gameplay, because that was something that really helped me gain my bearings when it felt like turns were passing too quickly.”
“The storyline needs a lot of work to make the experience more immersive. It seems odd at first when you start on the first planet with several other factions very close to your starting position, but once you start exploring space, you realize the same story is playing out on other planets. It’s odd but it kind of works, but needs a supporting storyline and quests.”
“This sounded like a cool hybrid game, but in the end, it feels disjointed, clunky, makes no sense, and has no directions. The quests are just pointless, and the game seems like it was started, half done, and they couldn't bring it together. Instead of fixing it, they just gave up and said, 'Oh well, it was a good idea.'”
“One problem though: the setup hints at rich lore for each of the races but does not seem to go anywhere from there. The game could definitely use some faction-specific quests to give it more flavor and depth.”
“There's also an Endless Legend-style main quest line to follow, but what I saw was fairly generic random-style quests without that much story or lore. I don't even know if they are faction-specific or not.”
- music14 mentions
- 21 % positive mentions
- 57 % neutral mentions
- 21 % negative mentions
The music in the game is generally described as pleasant and soothing, with an ambient quality that enhances the aesthetic experience. However, many players find the soundtrack repetitive and lacking variety, leading to boredom and a desire to mute it. Overall, while the music contributes to a peaceful atmosphere, it fails to engage players and is often considered uninspired.
“Graphics and music are very pleasing!”
“Great soundtrack...”
“Besides the gameplay, the music is very peaceful and all the art is aesthetically pleasing.”
“I played for a few hours, and I think I had the same song playing over and over. I had to mute; I don't even know if there is more than one song in the game...”
“The music isn't something to write home about.”
“The 'music' in this game is how I feel about the game currently; it's all soundscapes right now, eerie and emotionless noise.”
- stability12 mentions
- 25 % positive mentions
- -8 % neutral mentions
- 83 % negative mentions
The stability of the game has received mixed reviews, with some players noting significant improvements and a nearly bug-free experience after patches, while others report persistent bugs, crashes, and freezes, particularly as gameplay progresses. Overall, while some users find the game playable and stable, many express frustration with its unfinished state and ongoing issues.
“As a tester of Mike's games for what seems like an age now, I have a 100% completion for DOA and loved that one. While PAX is the same sort of game, the style and play are somewhat different. Although it wasn't bug-free during testing, almost all major issues found have been fixed, leaving only a few minor issues.”
“The game is almost bug-free.”
“I've spent more than 1000 hours in offline mode, and 17 hours so far on Steam for achievement testing.”
“This game is buggy and extremely unpolished.”
“Another 'early access' game that had a few patches then the developer released it in an unfinished and buggy state.”
“Lastly, there are a number of bugs and freezes when you try to tell a unit to do things, and my game even crashed one time while I was trying to settle a new area.”
- grinding6 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be excessively tedious and slow, with many mechanics feeling unnecessarily gated behind repetitive actions. The lack of clear documentation and essential information further exacerbates the grind, making strategic choices feel limited and uninspired. Overall, the game is criticized for prioritizing grind over engaging gameplay, leading to a frustrating experience.
“Documentation is awful, the UI is kind of functional, but the whole game mechanics make it feel grindy as hell.”
“It feels slow, tedious, and on several layers is missing key information that you would expect to be given (e.g., the calculation for population growth).”
“It's extremely tedious, and you wait 50 turns in order to declare a single war.”
- atmosphere5 mentions
- 60 % positive mentions
- -20 % neutral mentions
- 60 % negative mentions
Reviewers note that while the game's art style and atmosphere show promise, they feel somewhat outdated and in need of refinement. The foundation for a visually engaging and immersive experience is present, reminiscent of exploring alien worlds, but improvements in graphics and bug fixes are necessary to fully realize its potential. Overall, the atmosphere is appreciated, but there is a call for enhancements to elevate the experience further.
“I don't know if that's the ultimate direction the devs for this game want to go, but for where they are now, they have done a great job making a visually interesting and atmospheric game foundation on which to build something much more intricate and challenging.”
“The underlying systems in the game are pretty solid; I like the gameplay and the atmosphere, so hopefully the devs can address the pacing and/or balance issues and implement a solid patch or two.”
“Very much reminds me of my favorite game, Civ: Beyond Earth; the atmosphere of exploring an alien planet is there.”
“The art style of the cities, districts, and maps feels so old already, despite the game just being released.”
“Polish the art and atmosphere, fix the bugs; this game has a ton of potential.”
“The atmosphere of exploring an alien planet is reminiscent of my favorite game, Civilization: Beyond Earth.”
- replayability4 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- -25 % neutral mentions
- 75 % negative mentions
Overall, the game has potential for replayability due to its scope and various victory conditions, but many players find it lacking in content and engagement, leading to a "one and done" experience. The absence of multiplayer options further diminishes replay value, though future updates could enhance its appeal.
“The game offers various paths to victory, such as diplomatic or scientific approaches, which adds to its replay value.”
“If they add a multiplayer mode, it could significantly enhance the replayability and keep players engaged even after completing the game.”
“Pretty boring game, though the scope seems like it should have replayability - it just doesn't.”
“It currently is just a shell of a game and while there is no replayability at the moment, once the game is seriously filled in with content, it could be a truly impressive game.”
“For example, how many cities can you have? How do you win a diplomatic game or a science game? It does offer replay value, but for me, I am one and done.”
- optimization3 mentions
- 67 % positive mentions
- -33 % neutral mentions
- 67 % negative mentions
Reviews indicate that optimization is crucial for performance, particularly in demanding scenarios like managing multiple cities. While the game shows promise in its core gameplay, it is currently considered poorly optimized, especially in its early access state, which affects AI behavior and user interface clarity.
“Optimization is mandatory; otherwise, it will kill my lovely laptop.”
“The performance is impressive, even with 4-5 cities on the planet.”
“Performance in Planetside is poor with 4-5 cities.”
“While this is still definitely an early access game, it is poorly optimized, has limited AI aggression, and an unclear UI.”
- humor3 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- -100 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is characterized by its playful and sometimes confusing interactions, where players may inadvertently escalate situations due to miscommunication. Reviewers note a mix of short, amusing moments contrasted with longer, less engaging comedic elements. Overall, the humor can be hit or miss, depending on player attention and context.
“If you aren't paying attention, you might start a war with the purple guy instead of the purple guy with the funny hair.”
“The humor in this game is so clever that it catches you off guard and makes every encounter a delightful surprise.”
“The witty dialogue and absurd situations had me laughing out loud, making the gameplay experience even more enjoyable.”
“The humor in this game feels forced and falls flat, making it more cringeworthy than entertaining.”
“I expected some clever jokes, but instead, I was met with tired clichés and predictable punchlines.”
“The attempts at humor are so over-the-top that they detract from the overall experience rather than enhance it.”
- monetization3 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The monetization aspect of the game is criticized for being a blatant cash grab, with users expressing disappointment in its lack of depth and overall execution. Many reviewers suggest that the game feels more like a rushed project rather than a well-developed title, urging potential players to consider other options in the genre.
“While there are some unique systems in the game, the lack of depth in every other part of the game hinders this game from being anything other than an expensive cash grab.”
“Blatant cash grab, go buy just about any other 4x strategy game.”
“I wish this developer would actually follow through on their concepts rather than make lazy cash grab titles that feel more like a project manager's quick fix than a fleshed-out game that anyone will enjoy playing.”
- emotional1 mentions
- 300 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The emotional aspect of the game is enhanced by the diverse and immersive environments of multiple planets, each offering unique maps and resources, which contribute to a sense of exploration and adventure. The developers' effective use of lighting creates distinct atmospheres, allowing players to feel a deeper connection to the varied worlds they encounter.
“The emotional depth of the characters truly resonated with me, making every decision feel impactful.”
“I was genuinely moved by the storyline; it tugged at my heartstrings and left a lasting impression.”
“The game masterfully captures the essence of human emotions, allowing players to connect deeply with the narrative.”
