Project Pantheon invites you for an adventure in a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy universe full of traditional tales and mythology driven narratives. You are tasked by Death itself to aid in restoring order to a shattered reality. Your first step is an exploration of a fantastical reinterpretation of Nordic mythology — The Realm of Fate.

The game blends the high-stakes intensity of extraction gameplay with the depth and progression of hack-and-slash action RPG mechanics. Explore diverse maps to complete quests, battle tough enemies, and engage in dynamic PvPvE combat. Survive the challenges and return to your Sanctuary to secure loot and trade with other players. The stakes are high, dying means losing it all.

While Project Pantheon has been in development for more than a year and is currently in the early alpha stage of development, Wolcen Studio decided to conduct playtests for European and North American gamers to give them a chance to help shape the game’s development and future updates.

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As expected from a bullet-hell roguelike genres, the game features all the familiar mechanics: progressively getting stronger, selecting builds and combos, and surviving each stage. However, this game introduces a twist with time challenges and specific enemy kill requirements. On your way to the main boss, you’ll encounter mini-bosses, each offering unique challenges. Despite its potential, the current state of the game feels somewhat unpolished, leaving me with the impression that it might struggle to attract a broad audience.

One aspect I appreciated was the fluidity of movement and shooting. The ability to dash and slow down time as a special move adds strategic depth, allowing for both evasive maneuvers and aggressive play. Unfortunately, the enemy design felt lackluster. Many of them appeared visually similar, with only a few providing any real challenge. The sea shell enemies, for instance, swarm you with projectiles, but dodging their lasers quickly became repetitive rather than fun. Most enemies just felt really generic, simply moving around and dealing different types of damage, while unkillable enemies, although present, were easily avoidable.

On the other hand, the bosses stood out as intriguing, though they might not appeal to everyone. You must figure out how to defeat them without any guidance, and they require multiple rounds to take down. This added a layer of strategy, almost like a fair galactic duel to determine the victor, which I found quite engaging.

After each stage, you get to choose two upgrades for either your ship, weapons, or a powerful mod you select before the run—like black holes, electricity, or poison. These options add variety to the gameplay and offer interesting ways to take down enemies. As a bonus, you can destroy chests that spawn for additional gold after completing certain tasks. While this mechanic had potential, it lost its appeal in later stages when chests took too many bullets to destroy within the short time limit. However, I never felt short on gold for upgrades, which is a positive.

My biggest complaint lies with the feel of graphics. It was challenging to differentiate your bullets from the enemies’, as everything seemed too small and lacked color. The same goes for the enemies—my eyes strained to distinguish between them, and the chaotic swarm of foes on screen often felt overwhelming. This game tests your reflexes more than anything, with the sheer number of enemies disorienting you in most cases.

The art style didn’t particularly impress me either. The characters and enemies moved with minimal animation, making them feel like stickers pasted on the screen (which they technically are). While some might appreciate this simple aesthetic, I found it lacking in life and vibrancy. That said, it’s important to remember this is an alpha build, and there’s still room for improvement.

The standout features of this game are the weapons, mods, and upgrades. Without them, the gameplay would be somewhat dull. I was pleasantly surprised by how well the sound effects complemented the experience. I also hope the final version includes different pilots to play as, given that varied playstyles could elevate the game further.

These are just my first impressions. While the energetic music added to the excitement, I can’t see myself playing or purchasing this game. I might not be the target audience, but the simplicity of the game, along with the developers’ apparent willingness to experiment, could intrigue me enough to check in on its progress from time to time.

You can also find Intergalactic Battle Roosters on Steam.

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Mainframe Industries announced today that the playtest for Pax Dei, dubbed the Wilderness Alpha, will begin on Tuesday, April 23rd, and will run for the entire week. To participate, you need to sign up at playPaxDei.com and fill out your profile by April 15th. Additionally, link your Discord profile to increase the chances of being selected - visit the Linked accounts tab on your Pax Dei account.

This alpha test will invite you to explore the game outside of its home valley. The plan is to invite at least 100,000 players from day one, including players who were part of the first alpha. In addition, the playtest will not be confidential, which means that you will be able to stream and record everything related to the game.

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Although it's literally the same game, Dark and Darker's alpha playtest last year was very poor; a small number of enemies that were almost impossible to kill in some situations, some classes were too strong compared to others, there was very little loot to collect, and the maps were very small compared to Dungeonborne. At its core, Dungeonborne's alpha playtest delivers a lot more.

In my 10 hours of play, it was much easier to get used to Dungeonborne than it was to Dark and Darker. The game is easier to navigate, it's easier to kill enemies, there is a lot more loot to collect and it is quite friendly to newcomers. Dark and Darker's spells, abilities, and passives are less interesting than Dungeonborne's in my opinion. The spells in that game are quite similar to those in Skyrim; simple projectiles of different colors, ranges and damage.

In Dungeonborne, precision in skill usage is crucial; for instance, certain skills take considerable time to activate, making it challenging to play as a mage. Currently, Dark and Darker has more class customization in the form of choosing which passive skills you want to unlock. You unlock them as you progress, but you always have a limited number of slots for them that you can use.

Dungeonborne, on the other hand, doesn't have that. All skills are already an integral part of the class and cannot be changed, which really makes the gameplay itself limited. You unlock passive skills by collecting enough stat points, but you have the same passive skills as everyone else of the same class. Stat points come from gaining levels as well as equipment, so you can be an extremely well-equipped character already at level one with all passive skills unlocked.

Dungeonborne's maps are generally more open. It has much more advanced graphics rendering technology as it uses Unreal Engine 5, while Dark and Darker is still on Unreal Engine 4. This includes global illumination ray tracing, reflections and other more modern technologies. Overall, Dungeonborn has better graphics, but that's definitely a matter of personal opinion and impression.

It should be emphasized that Dungeonborne and Dark and Dark use ready-made assets from the market, in terms of enemies, environments and items, but Dungeonborne has a slightly greater variety of enemies. The artificial intelligence (AI) is generally bad in both cases, however Dungeonborne has a few issues with poor AI tracking so it's very easy to trick monsters and kill them from afar. For example, if you climb something above the ground, enemies will never be able to attack you and will look for ways to get to you.

It should also be noted that Dungeonborne contains various events within the game itself that are more accessible to players, in the sense that the rewards are better and it is easy to solve the given challenges. What you mustn't forget is that you can craft certain things yourself, such as health potions and then put all the valuable gathered items back into your chest so you don't lose them. Interestingly, there is a system that allows you to save at least one item if you happen to die while exploring various maps.

Additionally, Dark and Darker only has a PvPvE gameplay experience, while Dungeonborne has an arena for hardcore PvP battles in its first playtest. Despite the fact that the arena is quite basic, it already provides a lot of fun, offering various rewards such as experience, gold and other things. Dungeonborne also has a surprisingly deep auction system, something Dark and Darker doesn't have. This system is almost like a real little game with full sales analytics.

Overall, Dungeonborne is ahead in many concepts and Quality of Life features, but lags behind in things like optimization (you can literally see through walls) and AI. It also brings with it interesting ways to play, for example, you can throw different potions or turn into a mimic to trick other players, and the UI is also quite easy to use. I feel like Dungeonborne brings enough complexity with gear and stats that it will be easier for players to find a playstyle they like while also being effective.

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The game will also include revolutionary advances in AI graphics that significantly increase performance. Using the new fourth-generation tensor core and optical flow accelerator on GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs, DLSS 3 uses artificial intelligence to generate additional frames and improve image quality.

More information about the second closed alpha version will be revealed later, as well as the availability of this game on different platforms. Also, Mainframe Industries promises that Pax Dei will survive solely with the support of its gaming community, and the Early Access version will serve them to create the most immersive gaming experience possible.

Besides that, don't forget to sign up for a chance to be selected for another alpha test: https://playpaxdei.com/.

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The Alpha Test for Pax Dei will take place from November 14th to November 27th, and applications are open until the end of Sunday, November 12th. Codenamed Home Valley, the alpha version is focused on peaceful gameplay. For a chance to participate, sign up at https://playpaxdei.com/ until November 12 and fill out your profile. Also, make sure you and your friends are using the same Friend's Token so you can join the same group and play together. Mainframe Industries announced the plan to gradually invite several thousand testers into the game, enough to fill one copy of the world. Additionally, as of November 14th, all confidentiality requirements are being lifted and a dedicated section will be opened at Discord so you can share your impressions with the rest of the players.

They recently doubled the size of the world, meaning players are now offered four provinces covering nearly 300 km², and there are more than twenty valleys to choose the perfect place to live. Gather or hunt a wide variety of resources, deploy multiple crafters, and unlock tons of recipes to craft gear, weapons, and potions to help you on your adventures. There are dozens of building blocks available that you can combine into a home on your own lot. In addition, you can group together as a clan to share warehouses, artisans or plots, making cooperation for larger projects much easier, and encounter numerous enemies in various camps, caves and dungeons.

However, the combat and RPG systems are still under construction and will be overhauled soon. PVP is currently disabled to prioritize testing other game features. The developers promise to bring it back because it is part of the core concept of the game. For more information, you can also read the FAQ here.

Back in March, when we laid out our vision for Pax Dei, a living and breathing Social Sandbox MMO, we made a call for volunteers to participate in our testing program. We’ve been humbled by the response. We want to thank all of you who wishlisted Pax Dei on Steam, signed up at http://playpaxdei.com/ and joined our Discord community. Thank you for supporting our project and thank you for your patience so far! While we’ve already conducted multiple rounds of (confidential) playtests with small groups of players, we have now reached the stage where we need to scale things up and check that the foundations are sound.

Mainframe Industries

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