Palia's Free Elderwood Expansion Brings Magic, A New Zone, And New Consoles On May 13th

Cozy MMO Palia is gearing up to bring its brand of magic to both the world of Palia and to new audiences, as the Elderwood expansion launches next month. Alongside the new content is a launch on two new platforms: Xbox Series S|X and the PlayStation 5.

 I had the chance to check out the new content back at GDC 2025 last month, as well as check out Palia running on PlayStation 5, coming away from the experience excited to check out more come May 13th. It’s been a while since I had played Palia myself, and it’s been no secret that the team at Singularity 6 has been through some tough times since its beta launch back in August 2023. It’s inspiring to see the team still trucking along, and Elderwood feels like a natural evolution of the world the S6 team is building with Palia. 

While it’s still a cozy game at heart, Palia’s Elderwood expansion does feel like a distinct tonal shift from the base game. Oozing with a darker color palette and brimming with magical energy, Elderwood doesn’t feel sinister perse, but there is something certainly malevolent going on there. 

Elderwood starts to pay off some of the story beats that the team has been laying down ever since the content update back in November. Magic is coming back to Palia, and the Adventure Zone of Elderwood is absolutely brimming with the stuff. Elderwood also brings a new faction into the forefront with the first Umbran NPC introduced with the expansion. 

Elderwood itself is a joy to explore, and I especially loved the verticality of the zone. A dark canopy of trees block the sun from reaching the ground in Elderwood, so everything is lit with luminescent crystals and lamps, giving off a purplish hue. In true Palia fashion you can climb, glide and, in some places, bounce using massive mushrooms to reach new heights. 

At the center of all this is the Elderwood Stables, which acts as a fast travel point of sorts. As I explored Elderwood, I came across stable points which unlocked new fast travel spots, acting as a hub and spoke style system. 

It’s important to make your way back to the stables when you can as it’s here where the new Artifact and Relic crafting stations are located. Artifacts are effectively puzzles that you’ll need to complete. You do this by finding pieces of each artifact around the world - or trading with other players, whether on the trading post or within your party. 

Relics are unlocked once an artfact is completed. Relics, meanwhile, are pieces of equipment that bestow a buff on you and your party, which makes mixing and matching alongside your friends important to try to get the most bang for your buff, so to speak. 

There is a ton to do in Elderwood as well. Fans of Palia will no doubt be hunting for those recipes needed to continue to build amazing houses and other builds on their plots (there are over 800 individual housing decoration items in the cozy MMO and counting), while others might want to go hunt down the new insects and game found within Elderwood, and they fight back for the first time in Palia. Though, in true Palia fashion, there's not real concern about dying or going back to a spawn point - just a mild inconveniece of getting a bit dizzy.

And then, of course, there’s the main storyline, which uncovers the dark magic at work in the Elderwood and starts to uncover a bit more about Umbraa and its role in the world of Palia. 

New players coming to Palia on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X will have plenty to do, and the cozy MMO will support full cross play and cross progression across all platforms. During my demo, I was impressed by how well the cozy MMO ran on PlayStation 5, with Singularity 6 telling me that it was running at a native 4K60. During my demo I didn’t notice any real hitches or framerate drops throughout the experience, and everything just popped on the screen. As someone who was coming from mouse and keyboard as my primary way of playing Palia after its launch, the controller support felt pretty good as well - though I still think I prefer the mouse and keyboard controls at the end of the day. 

It’ll be interesting to see how things shake out for Singularity 6 come May 13th. Over six million players have tried Palia since its August 2023 launch on PC, and including the new content expansion free with the already free-to-play cozy MMO is bound to attract some new players on Xbox and PlayStation next month. I’m certainly going to be coming back to explore Elderwood more, only this time it might be from the comfort of my couch on PlayStation.