I have a rather mixed relationship with Palia. On the one hand, I’ve put 80 hours into its world and think it has some of the best character writing in the whole genre. However, if you’ve read my review, you also know I gave Palia an average score due to its many bugs and poor game design. Even now, when people ask me whether they should play Palia, I don’t feel very strongly either negatively or positively. It's free, so that’s probably the deciding factor. That’s not to say Palia is a bad game—its roaring success is proof of the opposite—but there are a lot of frustrations I have with it that cannot be dismissed.
Despite this mixed bag, the team over at Singularity 6 was kind enough to invite me to a virtual hands-off preview of their latest adventure zone, the Royal Highlands. I was guided through the new environment and its new gameplay mechanics,then got to ask some questions. So, I’m here to fan the hype or… soften it and let you guys know whether this new instalment to Palia’s world is going to be the next best thing.
Map & Biome
For those who are not familiar, Adventure Zones are the regions that make up Palia, and they’re often large maps with new story lines, animals, and resources. They are what Singularity 6 builds towards at the end of strings of patches and often bring in a tide of new and returning players. Around this time last year, we got the Elderwood expansion, an enchanted forest type biome with an emphasis on vertical travel. Players were able to bounce on glowing mushrooms to ascend towering trees and trail through dark caves with luminescent fungi. However, this time the team has gone in the opposite direction with the sprawling plains of the Royal Highlands.
The map is considerably larger than what we are used to, with the team saying it’s a whole 1.6x larger than Bahari Bay. I didn’t get to see much of the landscape, but I did get to peek at some ancient human ruins in the form of the Manor and a campsite where players can hang out, make food, and trade goodies. My worry with this map is that it may feel too empty; I found that Bahari Bay was as big as I wanted a map to be without having too much dead space. However, there is a reason why the Royal Highlands are so big: to allow you to feel the wind in your virtual hair when riding your new mount!
Horses
The team said that horses were a feature that had been highly requested since Palia started, and they were happy to fulfill those desires finally. "Horses" is definitely the word this year with Disney Dreamlight Valley adding them in their Wishblossom Ranch update earlier this year. However, my biggest complaint was that they felt too large to maneuver in the game’s environments. Singularity 6 has definitely made sure this is not a problem in their new region. Just maybe don’t expect them to be very useful in the Elderwood. After speaking with the Palian community on Reddit, they were excited to see horses being announced but hope they will be done right, with plenty of opportunity to customize and take care of your horse.
The sprawling plains of the Royal Highlands are perfect to use your mount to its fullest, with long stretches to gallop through and fallen trees and debris to jump across. Travel will also be aided by speed boosts that are dotted along your path—unique to this biome—and will need to be managed by a stamina gauge that will steadily deplete at higher riding speeds. I can’t wait to take my steed and go back to explore Bahari and Kilima, as after 80 hours, traversing the map can get a bit old; this will certainly breathe a bit of life back into traveling.
Horses unlock very early alongside the story in the Royal Highlands and can be summoned like a tool wherever you are in Palia. When they aren’t with you, they can be found resting in your barn plot back home. They will feature in the ranching mechanic that players have had time to warm up to since last winter, with horses having to be cared for and fed; you can also breed them to get unique looking color palettes. I got a look at some bizarre looking mythical breeds that provides the player with unique droppable items and traits. If I know farming sim players, they are going to eat this right up. Horses also come with unique traits, like being speedier at the cost of handling or just having a shiner coat. It’ll be interesting to see how intricate the breeding system can become as everyone has a dream horse in mind.
Story & Characters
For me, the new story and characters will be the most exciting part of this expansion as the team has repeatedly shown that they can make compelling characters and expansive world building. This time around, we will be diving into the lost ancient human civilization with fragmented, old buildings left behind to explore. Unfortunately, not much more was said about the story but that it will follow on from the Elderwood storyline. They also teased the new NPC, Eshelon, and a mythical beast from the Elderwood. One of the main questions I asked about the expansion was the involvement of past characters and whether Eshelon would debut with a full friendship quest. Unfortunately, like Ulfe, players will need to wait a bit longer for this, which is a shame. In terms of past characters, it seems like the Elderwood lot are in for the ride as Tamala, Subira, and Ulfe journeyed with us to the Royal Highlands. We also get the wonderful company of Hassian and his pal Tau this time around. I just hope we get to see more bonus quests with the residents of Kilima like we did in the Elderwood.
Wildlife & Gameplay
Like every new adventure zone, we get new resources and wildlife to gather and hunt. We will see the return of sernuks, but with a delightfully elemental twist this time. If them teleporting away wasn’t enough to get your heart pumping in the hunt, these new variants have all kinds of tricks up their sleeves. Sernuks now have elemental masks that dictate what kind of loot they drop and what kind of shield powers they have. Green sernuks have shields that will immediately pop up when they see the player, and red sernuks will erect their shield and charge to stun you if you aren’t quick enough to get out of the way. This is certainly a breath of fresh air and adds strategy to hunting instead of just letting all your arrows loose as soon as you see something move. Once these are slain, you can pick up their unique elemental masks, which can then be used at elemental vaults to get cool loot. There is also the new creature, Jaakcats, but we didn’t get to see much of them, except they seem to dwell in sandy areas.
The main resource of this biome is Amber Echoes. Like a plague, it has twisted plants and even encased certain wildlife for you to break free. This resource can be gained through any activity/action you carry out in the biome, meaning you can rack up a nice supply fairly quickly. It can then be used to purchase the new sets of furniture and other goodies. One of my major complaints about the Elderwood was how annoying the Infected Essence resource was. Having to run around collecting it like Pac-Man was never fun, and I’m glad they got rid of this when it came to the Royal Highlands.
Housing & Decoration
Last and not least, the new range of housing lines and decorations on offer in this expansion. The Ancient Human Home Line is the game’s latest set of furniture and architecture for players to experiment with, and the Aristocrat set boasts a new set of Rococo inspired furniture pieces that give players a more royal and opulent style to use. You’ll also be able to add a third story to your house, maybe hinting towards the establishment of grandiose palaces and the like. Another feature the devs were excited about was the massive improvement to the clothing dye system. They said they were limited on what they could provide before, but now players will have access to so many more color palettes and options to dye different elements of a piece of clothing.
Q&A
With such a large adventure zone, will there be fun things to engage with using your horse? Will this tie into multiplayer?
‘We are always looking to incorporate ways for players to have fun when playing together. We will be doing this through dynamic events, and we have no doubt that players will continue to wow us with their creativity through building their own tracks on their house plots’.
This is your 4th adventure zone, are you worried the game will get too large to handle?
‘We always knew Palia was going to get this big, from the start we knew we were going to add horses and these adventure zones. Our team is always putting out patches and working hard to make sure the player experience is paramount’.
Will you be going back to flesh out other adventure zones, or does a chapter close once they are out?
‘Once we move on from an adventure zone, we do tend to say it is finished. The Elderwood has received many events and patches with the recent addition of Ulfe’s friendship quest. We now want to focus fully on both the new Adventure Zone fully and what’s to come in the future’.
It’s great to see the team so enthusiastic about this new step for Palia and even though I’m a tad disappointed that they won’t be going back to the Elderwood to add more content—I and a lot of players feel like once the story is done the area doesn’t entice you back with anything else—the new arrival of mounts is a fun dynamic that will have me traversing old adventure zones with new vigor.
Thanks again to Singularity 6 for inviting me to this event; we can’t wait to see its full release.
The Royal Highlands expansion launches May 12 on console and PC.
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