The sandbox MMORPG Pax Dei has managed to regain many players with its 1.0 release. Another MMO that left Early Access on Steam on the same day, however, currently boasts 5 times as many players.
Which game is that? The new game is called Necesse and is developed by Fair Games ApS. Like Pax Dei, Necesse also released its 1.0 version on October 16, 2025. Both games gained many new players this way, or brought back old ones.
- After Pax Dei had only around 300 concurrent players on Steam months before the 1.0 release (according to steamdb.info), a whopping 6,500 players logged in by October 19 – the most in a long time
- Necesse reached its all-time peak on October 19 with 29,440 concurrent players (according to steamdb.info) – about 5 times more players than Pax Dei
While the excitement for the release of Pax Dei is currently lacking, Necesse can convince a large portion of its players. The nearly 16,000 reviews for Necesse are 93% positive, while only 55% of the roughly 5,000 reviews for Pax Dei are positive.
By the way, here you can see a trailer for Necesse:
Mix of Terraria and RimWorld with a pinch of MMO
What kind of game is Necesse? In the Steam reviews, the game is frequently compared with other titles – including Terraria, Stardew Valley, and RimWorld. The reason for this selection is likely the visual style of the game: Necesse relies on a stylized pixel look from a top-down perspective.
Even in gameplay, parallels can be drawn. User Wolfguarde expressed in his Steam review: “Gameplay is a mashup of Rimworld’s colony control and camera placement with Terraria’s progression and gameplay style.”
Necesse throws you into an infinite, procedurally generated world. You can explore it alone or with friends. If you really want to play Necesse like an MMO, with a mass of players, you can set up a dedicated server. Each server can host up to 250 players.
In the game, you gather resources, build your own settlement, and crawl through dungeons where you loot treasures and defeat bosses. If you don’t want to perform certain tasks yourself, you can count on the help of the villagers.
- “[…] you get an army of villagers to do the boring stuff. Hate farming? […] Hate chest sorting? […] Hate mining? Tell the villagers to do it.” (Jayel on Steam)
How much does the game cost? The standard price for Necesse is €14.99. However, anyone who purchases it by October 30, 2025, gets the game on Steam for half price. So you’ll only pay €7.49.
Pax Dei is one of three major games that our MMORPG expert Karsten Scholz played last weekend. However, he had the most fun with a title that is not an MMORPG at all. You can read more about it in this article: I played 3 major and current games this weekend, had the most fun with the non-MMORPG
