Palia blew MMORPG fans away with its announcement trailer earlier this year. The game’s merging of Animal Crossing-style community building with MMO gameplay and a Breath of the Wild-style open-world proved to be more than enough to get gamers interested. It looks likely that when Palia releases, it will have a ready-made player base eager to get started. However, while Palia has set a good starting point, it faces a bit of a battle in winning over existing MMO players and drawing them away from their favorite titles.
Still, this shouldn’t prove to be too much of an issue for Palia,as it looks likely to appeal to a very broad audience. Its MMO counterpart New World, on the other hand, may find this a bit more challenging. Unlike Palia, New World looks to appeal to a traditional MMORPG audience, and as a result, it bears a fairly close resemblance to other big names in its space. While slight changes have proven to be enough to impress fans, it could take something major to shift the majority from their preferred titles. To be successful, New World may have to differentiate itself in the same way that Palia is setting itself apart.
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Palia is an upcoming casual MMO game that could be set to take the MMO market by storm when it releases. What made Palia’s trailer stand out is just how absorbing the game looks. It features a vibrant pastoral open world, inspired by Breath of the Wild, community elements similar to those that can be found in the likes of Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, and an ever-evolving narrative that will apparently unfold over the coming years. Palia’s reveal trailer gave off a seriously relaxed aura, akin to Animal Crossing. From first impressions, it seems as though the game is purpose-made to fill the need for a relaxing MMORPG experience and deviate from the usual stressful grind associated with them.
In promotional material, a massive emphasis has been placed on the community elements of Palia. It’s obvious that Palia at every turn is looking to convey good vibes, from the trailer which emphasized the steady growth from a dinky plot of land to an expansive country home, to the repetition of the term ‘friendly’. But it is Palia’s community that appears to be its main selling point, and it could be what sets it apart from other MMOs. Players are encouraged to join a server with friends or make new ones in Palia, with the experience being better shared than solo. How Palia ensures this will be continually possible is by designing the game so that progression doesn’t prevent any players from playing the game together.
Palia’s friendly community could be what draws in a large number of its new fans. The MMORPG genre is very popular in gaming, but with many, the grind and the toxicity of the community is something that discourages new gamers from trying its games out. It can be difficult to learn a new type of game, especially one that’s heavily associated with a grind, and the difficulty around playing with higher-level friends makes a gradual introduction near impossible. This is where Palia’s friendly community and apparent relaxing gameplay could fill a large void, appealing to existing MMORPG fans looking for something different. To put it simply, the good vibes Palia gives off make it something special in its genre, and that will likely hold a lot of appeal to new gamers and old alike.
A big challenge New World might face is differentiating itself from existing MMORPGs. While Palia offers something very different to its competitors to draw in a fanbase, New World may struggle to justify itself to MMO fans. New World's universe is inspired by colonial America, but it is filled with mythical foes to take down in a quest to improve and gradually undertake larger battles. While this sounds like an interesting premise, the question remains of whether fans of World of Warcraft, for example, will have their head turned from WoW to continually play. If it is not different enough, it will be a challenge to tear players away from a game they’ve likely invested hundreds of hours into.
New World does differ from the standard MMORPG experience in a couple of areas, however. For starters, there are no classes for the player to choose upon creating their character. In New World, the player is spawned into the world as a human, and they are able to specialize in certain areas through gameplay progression. Through their specialization, the player may prove to be of great use to their faction, which is another area in which New World could thrive. New World will have massive 50v50 PVP conflicts between the three main factions of the game. These sound more reminiscent of survival gameplay rather than MMORPG, and they could be a big draw. Whether these features will be enough to guarantee New World’s success is yet to be seen, but its launch will be of great interest to a number of other upcoming MMORPG titles.
Palia is currently in development.