A first gameplay look into Palia, an upcoming cozy MMO, features a familiar Disney Dreamlight Valley aesthetic set in a fantasy world with romanceable characters, character customization options, skill lines, and even combat.
A first look at Palia’s official gameplay aired on YouTube on July 19, with the developers highlighting some of the interesting and most exciting features of the early gameplay experience.
Off the bat, you’ll dive straight into creating a character, and you can choose from quite a few customizations—albeit not as many as we were hoping.
Because, according to the lore of Palia, you are the first real human to arrive in their world in a long time, the only race you can be is human, which is a little disappointing because many fans would love to be an elf or a robot.
But, as Palia will be a live service game, additional customization options and hopefully races will be added later.
Related: Is Disney Dreamlight Valley free to play?
One of the more exciting aspects of Palia is you can supposedly play however you like, meaning you can stick to doing quests and avoid everything else, or you can explore and move to the beat of your drum, which makes these cozy MMOs much more exciting because you and your friends can spend an afternoon fishing, cooking or mining.
What you’ll notice most about Palia is its art style and graphics heavily resembles Disney Dreamlight Valley but with their spin, making the world of Palia pretty adorable.
However, it differs from Dreamlight Valley in a few ways; while you can interact with the characters in Dreamlight Valley, in Palia, some characters are romanceable, adding further to the “play-your-own-way experience.”
But the biggest selling point is Palia will be free-to-play from launch. There will be packs you can buy with real-world money to customize your experience or character further, but those certainly aren’t necessary.