State of Open Beta — Palia

The cosy MMO Palia has finally been released to Open Beta and has been out for quite a while now. With several professions to max out, a slew of romanceable characters, a wide amount of quests to complete, and two zones to explore, let's take a look at what there really is to do and whether you should play the game now or leave it resting for a while.

Upon booting up the game, you'll notice that it is a one-account sort of MMO, where your Palia account has one toon to take control of, similar to Disney Dreamlight Valley. With it, you will enter character customisation that is relatively limited, with two body types and no body modifications thenceforth, a couple of hairstyles, clothes with different colours, and a glitchy (at least for me) permanent eyeliner on your person. 

After the game has started, you can change parts of your character, mostly the cosmetic options like their clothes and hair, while other "permanent" features like body type and colour will be an addition to be added at a later date (according to the team). Whether this will be a paid bonus in the future or free is yet to be announced.

Once you start your game, you can follow the questline up until a pivotal point in which you will have to select one of the adults in the game (the exact quest name and details are being omitted for spoiler reasons). This marks the "end" of your main storyline, and you can reach it quite quickly, mainly if you focus on these quests rather than relationships and professions. Once you've selected your adult character, your quest is left on hold until more things are added in the future, though when this will be updated (and later on finished) has not been clarified.

Sidequests can be done with characters alongside romance quests that offer a bit more backstory with them and gameplay. There isn't much to do with your chosen character (or characters — Palia doesn't limit you to one relationship at a time), but there might be more coming at a later date, with no direct confirmations from Singularity 6 as of yet. Depending on your preferred playstyle, there aren't a lot of quests to do at the moment — the main one ends relatively quickly and all character-specific ones depend on whether you are a completionist or not. If you want to reach maximum friendship with everyone, you will find more to do, but most of these quests are still pretty barebones and easy to complete, so it isn't robust at this current moment.

You'll also be able to participate in Skills and Skill Guilds. There are currently eight total skills you can level up — Fishing, Cooking, Gardening, Mining, Hunting, Bug Catching, Foraging, and Furniture Making. Each one can reach level 50, but the most substantial gameplay unlocks after Level 10, where you get access to Skill Guilds and the entire shop available for you to buy crucial upgrades.

You can participate in Weekly Skill Guild challenges that give you Guild-specific tokens that you can use in the stores. These consist of gathering items of a specific quality or doing so with another player in a "Together" quest. Each level will also yield tokens, and you can work towards your desired items, which work as your current "endgame" content. You can also give the characters up to four "desired" gifts per week, and you can find these out at different levels of friendship with them. This isn't the only way to level up with them, but it is one of the most reliable ones to get a quick boost.

The world is separated into two zones you can explore so far, both of which have an admirable size and include a variety of hidden chests to find. There isn’t much variety when it comes to things like wood types and ore to gather, but bugs and fish differ a bit, and you’ll find a group of “achievements” you can get for collecting everything or other random tasks in the game.

Finally, the decoration allows you to create a gargantuan house with various pieces of furniture you can buy from Tish's shop and learn to craft from her as well. The decoration is definitely one of the strongest suits of the game, giving you access to up to 15 buildings to add to your plot, which can range from windmills to house expansions with four different options in size. None of these are permanent, as you can keep them and remove them at will, but an eight-hour timer awaits those who wish to upgrade their homes.

Whether you should play the game solely depends on the type of content you are looking for. Either way, Palia has shaped up to be a very enjoyable experience that I adored, but the lack of quests and storyline to follow left the world feeling relatively empty, and I opted to stop playing to wait for more content to be added instead of burning out the skills farming and house decoration.

Overall, I’d say there is a decent amount of playtime here, but different areas offer different amounts. Quests and relationships overall are a bit lacking at the moment, so the world of Palia starts feeling a bit empty after you’ve completed them, like a life simulator you simply don’t want to let go of despite finishing everything. But the Skills and decoration are abundant with things to do, and you can easily get a lot of hours from them. Personally, I’d rather wait for more story quests to be added so the game overall feels more whole — finishing the most important quests and still playing for the Skills and house decoration feels like beating a dead horse and robbing myself of a full-feeling experience when Palia is more complete later down the line.