Cozy MMO Palia launches into Closed Beta today, opening up its world for players to explore, build together and uncover the mysteries of Palia, and maybe do a bit of fishing together along the way.
A community sim at heart, Palia's dev team at Singularity 6 aims to build a world that players can believe in, care about, and work together to make their own. Earlier this summer, I had the chance to check out Palia with the devs, learning a bit more about this cozy MMO and what players can expect jumping into the closed beta release today.
Welcome to Palia
Palia itself isn't just the name of the game, but also the world you'll inhabit. Thanks to a phenomenon unknown to yourself and to the resident Palians, humans are being dropped into the world of Palia. The first moments started with my character (after a brief jaunt through Palia's decent character creator) opening my eyes in a shattered ruin, with the researcher Jina there to greet me - as unsure of what happened as my character was.
The world of Palia is colorful, with the playful art style popping on screen. I love the fact that this isn't using a realistic art style to try to reign in players. Instead, the more stylized visuals evoke a Saturday-morning cartoon more than Crysis. That said, some might not necessarily want another game in the genre that looks like Disney: Dreamlight Valley meets Fortnite, but I love it. I think the colors play well and help sell the world as a cozy, welcoming, and warm place to spend my time within.
This was cemented when I first left the confines of my small chamber and saw the world of Palia unfold in front of me. Waterfalls cascaded in the distance as green hills rose on the horizon. In the distance, a small village was visible with windmills dotting the hills on the skyline. It was idyllic, and a great first impression of the world that is meant to be a welcoming, cozy place for players to explore and relax with friends.
Palia's UI also feels like the perfect mix of form and function. While it's still a HUD-based UI, nothing feels cluttered or out of place. Instead of a mini-map to guide me, an Elder Scrolls Online-style compass adorns the top of the screen, while a time-of-day indicator takes up the top right. Hotbars are slotted on the bottom right, tucked out of the way, but easy to find when using it for the many tasks Palia has to offer.
After leaving the ruins, I came upon the main village in the start of Palia, Kilima Village. A small town, the settlement acts as a hub for players early on to learn the ropes of surviving in Palia, as well as investigating the magical event that brought humans back to the world.
With twenty-three confirmed residents of Kilima Village, there's no shortage of people to visit. From the town's tailor Jel to the mayor Kenli, there's always someone to meet and get to know. As a cozy community sim at heart, townsfolk all have their own schedules and daily lives, living them out alongside the players filtering in and out of the community. During my demo, Palia's dev team told me that the village itself is smaller compared to some other MMO villages and towns due to a desire to strike the right population balance between NPC and players.
What is there to do in Palia?
So what exactly do you do in Palia? Well, again, it's a community sim MMO, so if you've played games like Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing or Disney: Dreamlight Valley, you know what's coming. From hunting, fishing, farming, and homesteading, there's plenty to do in Palia.
Many of the tasks are taught by the villagers of Kilima Village, from the farmer Badruu helping you learn the basics of growing your own food, to Hassian, who can teach you how to hunt properly. Palia doesn't have combat proper like you'd expect - you're not going to go around in search of monsters to slay like you might in games like World of Warcraft. That's not to say there isn't combat in Palia, adventure zones such as Bahari Bay, which was shown off in last month's gameplay reveal will likely have some. But it's not the focus of Palia like it is in other MMOs, and there will not be PvP. However, hunting for what you need is definitely permissible.
However, you need a homestead first and foremost in order to live in the world of Palia. Ashura comes in handy here, as he gets players set up with their first plots of land nearby the village. While this first house is nothing more than a humble tent, it's definitely a start to learning the ropes and, eventually, building your own house that could become the envy of your friends.
It's not as simple as dropping a tent onto the new plot of land provided by Ashura. Hodori, one of the villagers, gave me an axe and pickaxe to start clearing the field. The plot of land is pretty generous for a first plot, covered with rocks, overgrowth and more.
Clearing the way is also a great way to start gathering some simple resources needed to craft the simple tent. Items are craftable at a small workbench on the property, from storage chests to store items to the tent needed to, like, survive in the early game.
As Burt Bacharach famously wrote "A House is Not A Home," homesteading is much more than placing a tent and leaving it be. You create a home by furnishing it with decorations, furniture and things you need to live within Palia. This is where I can see many players (my partner chief among them) losing themselves in this game. From making your own furniture to obsessing over its placement, Palia is made for players whose chief motivation is creating the best home that personifies their personality to a tee (please let me build a music room, Palia!).
One thing I appreciate about Palia's build mode are the different viewing options the team gives its players. From a grid that pops up on the ground when you use a peaceable item to a top-down tactical-style camera view to see exactly where on the property your item is going to be at, there are plenty of ways to place items exactly where and how I want them. I live for top-down views in systems like this, as I love the added perspective of seeing the whole picture when deciding where something on my land should go.
It also helps when the homestead gets much more built out, moving on from humble tents to more complicated houses with multiple wings and levels. Or maybe I want to see the exact layout of my garden to plan an expansion - the top-down camera is where it's at for me.
Gardening itself is a more manual affair than in some cozy sim games. Using the hoe tool in the inventory, Palia has you literally till the soil in multiple passes, getting it ready for the crops. Unlike Minecraft or Stardew where it's basically a click on a plot and you're done, Palia had me literally doing multiple passes with the tool till the plot was just right. It's a but therapeutic, but I'm hoping that as I upgrade tools this will be done faster, as I can see myself getting bored quickly the more I grow my farm.
However, the benefits of having my own vegetables to use for both Palia's excellent cooking minigames as well as to sell in town will outweigh that feeling, most likely. Palia's gardening also can provide some bonuses to your skill based on how you plot out your crops, placing some next to others to confer bonuses. I do like that while the aim to create a cozy, laid-back experience, Singularity6 still knows its MMO audience - the genre of min maxers. I cannot wait to read the min-max guides to Palia farming. They are coming. Trust me.
Where's the MMO in all of this?
While we've only scratched the surface of what there is to do in Palia, the obvious question if you've read this far is Where is the MMO?
Well, Palia isn't a traditional MMO like we'd classify it, though it shares many of the design philosophies we'd recognize in a modern MMO - namely, the idea of player cooperation.
Palia's developers told me during our play session that the choice of 23 villagers was deliberate in order to help create a balance between the player and the NPC population at any given time. You're not going to see thousands of players in Kilima at the same time, instead, about 25 players on screen at any time with the NPCs around them will be the norm. Given that, even an unpopulated Kalima Village in my playthrough felt rather busy with NPCs going every which way in their daily routine, I'm eager to see what a fully populated Kilima village will look like.
Additionally, while many of the activities in Palia are standard community sim fare, Palia adds some twists to make them more impactful with friends.
Fishing is one clear example. The fishing minigame is made easier simply by fishing with other people, and you can even cheer your friends on as they reel in a fish to make the minigame even easier. Hunting is obviously going to be more effective with more players helping track and take down the quarry. And players can even help each other over in the homestead, such as redecorating the house, depending on your permissions set up.
However, I think my favorite is the cooking minigame.
I absolutely love cooking. I do most of it for my family, though, to be fair, this is mostly by default since I'm the only one who can cook more than a grilled cheese. In most games that have cooking, I spend time pouring over recipes, gathering ingredients, and even sometimes taking inspiration from the game for that night's real-life meal.
Seriously, I've made soups in LotRO so many times in real life I might as well write the cookbook. Standing Stone Games - let's talk.
However, they are mostly solo affairs in MMOs, with you simply selecting ingredients on a screen and then waiting for a bar to tick down. Palia turns it into a multiplayer affair that sees players splitting up prep duties to create the dish.
This isn't to say you can't do it solo, but everyone needs a good sous chef. In my demo, I joined a developer in making a Steak dinner, which included making my own baguette, herb butter, and then the steak itself, bringing it all together.
At multiple prep stations, I found myself making each segment of the recipe, such as rolling out the dough on one station to create the baguette, chopping up the herbs, and more. It's a simple rhythm game, from timing the rolling pin's passes over the dough or the amount of whisking in a bowl to get the butter and herbs mixed just right, it's engaging at every step of the way.
I absolutely love the cooking in Palia, and I'm eager to find even more complicated recipes to try to cook with friends. Heck, I can imagine all the different cooking competitions that could sprout up as time goes on. Maybe the Great Palia Bake-off someday?
Like all collaborative efforts, from resource gathering to cooking, every single person who participates in the activity gets a reward, meaning it's no time wasted helping a friend. It's this type of collaborative reward that can spur on gameplay that encourages players to make those social connections MMOs are known for.
However, it's not just relationships with players you'll form. NPCs can also be romanced, much like we see in other cozy community sims, opening up even more gameplay opportunities to explore. All the while, the mystery surrounding why so many humans are being transported to Palia looms overhead, ready to be explored.
Closed beta kicks off today, with Palia's open beta starting next week on August 10th, and honestly, I can't wait to play some more with community members. Palia might not be everyone's cup of tea in the MMO space, and it's definitely entering a crowded market with games like Hello Kitty Island Adventure, Stardew Valley and more already out and Fae Farm on the horizon. But I think it has enough going for it that it'll have staying power. It's free-to-play and definitely has a great sense of direction. It knows what it is trying to be: a nice, cozy escape for you and your friends to kick back, fish, go on a hunt, or explore the world together.
And I can't wait to explore it more myself.
Related:
Palia Game Director Reflects On The Road To Beta And Looks Ahead To Rest Of Year
