Palia is getting horses and a massive new region next week

Singularity Six is launching "The Royal Highlands," a massive expansion for the free-to-play MMO Palia, on Tuesday, May 12. The update introduces horse mounts, a new explorable region, and expanded housing options to the PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC versions of the game.

Walking across massive digital fields gets old fast. Palia players have spent the last three years jogging between farming plots and fishing holes on foot. The addition of horses fixes the game's most obvious traversal problem and gives players a much faster way to cross the map.

A rocky development history

Palia originally launched in open beta on PC in August 2023. It hit the Nintendo Switch later that year and arrived on Steam in early 2024. The game built a solid player base around its non-combat, community-focused gameplay loop. Players farm, cook, build houses, and romance the local villagers instead of raiding dungeons or fighting world bosses. It is essentially a multiplayer take on the Stardew Valley formula translated into a 3D environment.

The studio behind it faced serious hurdles over the last few years. Singularity Six went through multiple rounds of layoffs in early 2024. Daybreak Game Company, the publisher behind long-running online games like EverQuest and DC Universe Online, eventually acquired the studio in July 2024. Daybreak absorbed the development team and kept the servers running. The Royal Highlands is the first major content drop since that acquisition stabilized the company.

Saddling up for the highlands

The horses include mechanical depth through customizable stats. Players can tweak their animals to prioritize speed or stamina. This system gives players a reason to invest time into their mounts rather than just treating them as static speed boosts.

The Royal Highlands region adds a completely new biome to the game. The map has ancient ruins built into lush cliffs. Players use a glowing green bow to hunt magical, light-infused deer creatures in this new area. The update also introduces a new villager to befriend, expanding the game's social mechanics.

Housing enthusiasts get a massive upgrade as well. The building system now supports large, multi-story ornate houses. Palia's housing plots were previously somewhat restricted in verticality. Players spend hours crafting furniture and arranging rooms. Multi-story houses change the footprint economics of the home plots entirely.

MMO expansions usually focus on raising the level cap or adding raid bosses. A major update dedicated entirely to riding horses, building bigger houses, and exploring a scenic highland area fits perfectly into what makes this specific game work. More details are available on Palia's official website.