New developer Singularity 6 is preparing to launch its first game, Palia. Palia is a social and community MMO that takes elements from the open world adventure game genre, including titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Stardew Valley, The Sims, and Animal Crossing. In the magical, high fantasy world of Palia, humans are the legendary species, having mysteriously disappeared thousands of years ago. Players will enter Palia as a human character and slowly uncover the secrets of humanity's past. Along the way, they can meet and befriend a colorful cast of NPCs, build homes and neighborhoods with their friends, discover rich lore, and engage in optional dungeon crawls.
Unlike typical MMORPGs, combat is an entirely optional aspect of Palia, and players who do not want to encounter it never need to. The focus instead is on building and connecting with a community of players and on self-expression. Palia includes a robust character creation and fashion system to allow players to customize their avatar and build a character unique to them. They can also design and decorate their home with over 1,000 decorative and furniture items and invite friends and neighbors over to spend time together.
The neighborhood system promises to be a standout of Palia. As the world's version of guilds, neighborhoods will allow players to bond with the same friends on the same servers. It is possible to an existing neighborhood, or create a new one based on specific interests. As players build a community together on a server, they can access community features, communal rewards, and collaborate to achieve goals.
There are plenty of things for players to do solo in Palia as well. In addition to building, some of the major game mechanics include hunting, cooking, fishing, and start a romance with them.
In a special announcement event, developers at Singularity 6 explained their philosophy for the game as a safe and welcoming environment where players can gather to create and share. They outlined their plans for safety features, including a system that eliminates toxic comments. They also intend to include features like matchmaking to help players find the perfect neighborhood, integrated Proximity Voice Chat with "friended" players to increase immersion and communication among groups of players, and a permissions system to allow the player to control what visitors can do inside and outside their home plot.
The pre-alpha for Palia is set to begin in summer 2021 and should initially include an Adventure zone and a village. This will allow players to try out the mines, dungeons, and combat if they prefer, or spend their time getting to know NPCs and other players in the village in a more casual setting. Right now, Palia is only set to launch for PC, though more platforms may be added over time.
While Palia is still developing, the idea of a community sim MMO is immediately intriguing, especially for more casual gamers who don't necessarily prefer the atmosphere of traditional MMORPGs. Games like The Sims and Stardew Valley do have some social components, but Palia has potential to break new ground by making the community experience the main feature. In a post-pandemic world, Palia promises to offer a way to connect virtually and build a community and friendships entirely within a digital space. Given the immense popularity of largely single-player, casual, open-world games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing over the last few years, it will be exciting to see how Palia adapts and innovates within the genre.
Palia launches for pre-alpha in Summer 2021 for PC.
