Cozy Free-To-Play MMO Palia Announces Horses in Upcoming Expansion: Promising Mechanics and Disappointing Visuals
Palia is an online multiplayer life sim game available on Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Palia is somewhat unique within the MMO space as a cozy game free of combat, focusing instead on crafting, building, customization, collecting and exploration.
It’s a type of game I’ve had a somewhat interested eye on even without the horses, as someone who enjoys cozy life sim gameplay and prettily stylized character designs, even if online multiplayer and Free To Play aren’t my favorite kinds of game. Palia has now given me an immediately convincing reason to take a closer look: The Royal Highlands Expansion, announced for release on May 12th, will add horses to the game.
An eight minute long roadmap video showcases new territory and features. with a section between about 1:55 (timestamped link) and 4:15 focusing on key horsie details. Between a frankly excessive amount of horse puns (that’s rich coming from the person who named her website The Mane Quest, I know), Palia’s community lead and production manager explain that Palians will not only be able to acquire mounts to get around the brand new Highlands map, but also breed and raise horses for unique visuals and gameplay traits. I highly recommend watching at least the aforementioned segment of the video for further context.
The team even explains that:
You'll notice that horses have multiple gaits, so it's pretty clear when your horse is still picking up the pace and accelerating into its top speed. For our equestrian enthusiasts, you'll be happy to know that the team studied equine movement and worked hard to strike the right balance between responsive controls and realistic movement.
And honestly, all of that sounds amazing. An already functional and well received game (Palia enjoys “Very Positive” Reviews on Steam) adding horses that aren’t just a speed upgrade but come with full on breeding mechanics, different breeds and unique traits per horse? If I only had this description and the key art above to go off, I would be giddy with excitement.
Unfortunately however, we can see how the horses will look in the game and it’s not great. The models are all kinds of wonky, the animation is stiff in some places and wobbly in others, it looks like the rig completely disregards the existence of fetlock joints, and I think I recognize the crappy Idle_Hop animation from HAP in the background at 3:30 in the video.
With the expansion releasing in less than two weeks, I‘m not gonna do a detailed breakdown of all the details in the promotional material that make these horses and their animations look decidedly subpar in my opinion. I started doing that, and it just left me frustrated and angry, due to the mismatch between what the marketing team says in the announcement video versus what I can see with my own eyes.
Hindlegs so straight like it’s a halter-bred QH
That’s not where the eyes should be on a horse’s head.
For now I‘ll just say that I strongly suspect that the Palia horses are based on the always-unsatisfying Horse Animset Pro, that I doubt they‘ll have much staying power in the horse game community because of that, and that the claims in the video of having studied equine movement and catering to equestrian players are exaggerated at best and actively misleading at worst. I did reach out to the team for information, but was told that with the impending release, no one from the art and animation team has capacity for an interview, which is fair enough.
I’d love to take Palia’s marketing at face value and get excited for this because I find the game quite appealing overall and I love that the horses are coming with a bunch of options and dedicated mechanics. But all of those things only work for me when the horses actually look good, and I think these just… really don‘t. Which is a damn shame, since obviously some effort was made to cater to our community. At the same time, the last thing I want to do is I mane-splain to fellow horse-loving players why they shouldn’t be excited about this. I‘m the first to admit that I‘m particularly picky about horse stylization and animation.
I will add that some of the Palia players in my community have pointed out a separate kind of disappointment, which is that other animals in Palia are a lot more fantastical and creative, whereas these are “just” horses. I get that too – obviously I love it when games add horses, but even I would much rather have a well designed fantasy mount than a crappy horse.
We‘ll see if I‘m being overly skeptical once the expansion drops on May 12th. At the very least, I‘ll keep a close eye on gameplay footage and what the TMQ communities make of it. What do my readers think? Will these horses motivate you to give Palia a try? Would you like to see a review from me? Let me know in the comments!
The Arabian-style face works for me, but the body remains wonky on this model too.
I don’t mind fantastical customization choices but having a dark blaze reeks more of “we don’t know how face markings work” than anything else.
The key art shows fluffy ponies of a decidedly different style than the actual models. Can I get these horses instead please?
Screencap from the Palia website showing all sorts of anatomical wonkiness