Palia is a free-to-play life-sim MMO from Singularity 6 in which you farm, fish, mine, cook, decorate and build friendships with villagers in Kilima Valley. This guide collects early-game advice from published guides and the Palia fan wiki. The game is updated often, so exact numbers can change.
About the game
According to Wikipedia’s Palia entry, the open beta launched on Windows on August 10, 2023, on Nintendo Switch on December 14, 2023 and on Steam on March 25, 2024 (the developers said it remained in open beta), and the game reached PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on May 13, 2025. Daybreak Game Company acquired the studio in July 2024. The game is free to play with a cash shop. GamesBeat reports it passed 10 million players, and that the Royal Highlands expansion, a new region with horses and a character named Eshelon, launched on May 12.
First steps
- Follow the opening quests. Dexerto says they teach the basics, unlock tools and villagers, and level your skills.
- Clear your plot. Dexerto notes the starting plot is full of rocks, trees and mushrooms; clearing it frees space and gives wood and stone that most early recipes need. Store spares in chests.
- Get the glider. Dexerto recommends it early for crossing rivers, since your character cannot swim, and for reaching quest items. NoobFeed (November 2025) says you unlock it by completing the Ancient Battery questline with Jina and supplying the crafting ingredients.
- Know your two exits. NoobFeed says the plot’s front gate leads to Kilima Village and the back path to Bahari Bay, and that the Return to Housing Plot button works from anywhere with a 30-minute cooldown.
Time and crops
NoobFeed says one in-game day lasts one real hour, time keeps running while you are offline, and crops reset at 6 a.m. in-game, when you water, harvest and replant. It lists potatoes as taking five in-game days and says tomatoes keep producing without replanting. Items in the Shipping Bin sell at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. in-game.
Focus, Renown and shrines
Focus works like a bonus to your progress across skills. Dexerto and NoobFeed both say it increases the XP you earn and drains as you work, and that eating keeps it up. NoobFeed gives grilled mushrooms or grilled meat as early meals that each restore about 50 Focus. Renown comes from quests, skill levels, chatting with villagers and finding rare creatures. Dexerto says to visit the two shrines every 100 Renown: the Phoenix Shrine raises your Focus generation bonus, and the Dragon Shrine raises your total Focus, letting you eat higher-level foods.
Skills
NoobFeed lists eight skills: Bug Catching, Furniture Making, Cooking, Fishing, Gardening, Hunting, Mining and Foraging, each with a guild run by a villager. It gives no ranked order and suggests levelling what you enjoy. Reaching level 10 in a skill starts earning Medals, which trade at Guild Stores for furniture and recipes. Ginx adds that you start without axes or pickaxes (the tutorial quest provides them), tools wear down on harder nodes and can be upgraded at the crafting station, and that placing crafted items in your home earns inspiration that unlocks recipes.
Earning gold early
- Hunt Sernuk and Chapaa for antlers, meat, hides and tails that sell for good money. Dexerto adds that selling hunting loot also raises your Hunting skill.
- Forage shorelines in Bahari Bay for oysters and shells, and forage mushrooms, berries and flowers.
- Fish at Kilima Lake or the river near your plot, targeting ripples for rarer fish.
- Cook higher-value meals from raw ingredients, and plant potatoes for quick turnarounds.
Friendship and gifts
The Palia wiki says friendship rises by talking to a villager once per in-game day, gifting items and completing quests. Raising a level usually unlocks a new friendship quest, and level 3 gets you the key to the villager’s room. The wiki’s gifting page says each villager can receive one gift per day, with a daily reset at 4:00 AM UTC, and has up to four Weekly Wants per week that reset on Monday at 4:00 AM UTC. Gifts they love and like are shown in the Relationships (heart) tab, and once a villager reaches maximum friendship further gifts give no rewards. The wiki says giving a Box of Chocolates or a Heartdrop Lily to an eligible villager unlocks their romance questline, but it does not state the required level.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Palia
- GamesBeat: Palia celebrates 10M players
- Dexerto: Palia beginners guide (August 2023)
- NoobFeed: Palia beginner’s guide (November 11, 2025)
- Ginx: Palia beginners guide
- Palia wiki: Friendship and Gifting
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