Horse game klaxon: Palia is adding breedable, rideable horses and they look way more realistic than most MMO mounts

Palia: The Royal Highlands key art - An illustration of a player in a grassy highland petting a horse — (Image credit: Singularity 6)

I'm not the keeper of the grand "games with horses" spreadsheet but to whoever is: time to add Palia. The next expansion for the life sim MMO is adding one of those features players are always asking for in MMOs: mounts. Specifically: horses. I was expecting the stock-standard mounts implementation—a glorified 'go faster' button—but it sure looks like Palia's put enough thought into its horses to be worth a second glance by the chronically underfed equestrian gamers.

Palia Path Roadmap | The Royal Highlands - YouTube

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Palia - A horse named Sparkly in a stable with the traits Spakles, Quirky V, Immature V, Chestnut coat, and Cheerful IV — (Image credit: Singularity 6)

In most MMOs, mounts don't actually change how player movement feels and are really just a slightly higher camera angle and traversal speed. Guild Wars 2 has always been a bit of a notable exception with its mounts that all handle quite differently. Palia may not be going quite so far as GW2's Roller Beetle drifting movement, but different gaits and traits that mention changing how each horse handles—I spotted one called "Bulldozer" that makes a horse faster but worse at turning—is more than most MMOs get into.

Back at the ranch on your home plot you can feed and pet your horses. That's pretty basic stuff in the realm of horse care games, but the breeding system where you can produce mounts with favored traits is more than I expected from an MMO. Some traits are realistic like a chestnut coat or a cheerful disposition. Others are fantastical, like sparkly visual effects and status effect buffs. This is probably the second best thing to getting the horse ranching update I always wanted, and never got, in Red Dead Online.

When the Royal Highlands expansion launches in May there will be three (made up) horse breeds available: the Dawnspur, Phoenixfire Dawnspur, and the (Arabian-inspired) Akwinduu Thoroughbred. Someone in that video explainer has already beat us all to the "Mace Akwinduu" joke, sorry. During the reveal video, Singularity 6 says "starting with horses" so it sure sounds like we can expect more types of mounts, and maybe more horse breeds, in the future.

There's more going on in Palia this season that you can read up on in its Palia Path roadmap including an in-game event celebrating 10 million total players that begins today and a "sunkissed summer" event coming later.

Lauren has been writing for PC Gamer since she went hunting for the cryptid Dark Souls fashion police in 2017. She joined the PCG staff in 2021, now serving as self-appointed chief cozy games and farmlife sim enjoyer. Her career originally began in game development and she remains fascinated by how games tick in the modding and speedrunning scenes. She likes long fantasy books, longer RPGs, can't stop playing co-op survival crafting games, and has spent a number of hours she refuses to count building houses in The Sims games for over 20 years.

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