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Palworld developer Pockpair confirms that the survival game will not be going free-to-play. Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe was musing over whether or not the creature-catching game would pivot into a live service release in a recent interview, but new communication confirms that the team has come to a decision. Going free-to-play would require “too much work to adapt the game,” but extra content like premium DLC and skins are still potential sources of revenue in the future.
Palworld was undoubtedly the biggest new survival game of 2024. On Steam alone it peaked at a staggering 2.1 million concurrent players, and this support helped Pocketpair continue development. Palworld’s Sakurajima update was a huge boon that brought players back, but the long-term future of the game still remained uncertain.
In an interview with ASCII Japan, Mizobe talked about considering turning Palworld into a live service, free-to-play game. He looked to the likes of PUBG and Fall Guys, both of which went from a premium to a free model. Nothing was set in stone, but it sounded like Palworld could make the jump to sustain itself.
That’s all changed, though, as a new statement from Pocketpair assures that going free-to-play has been off the table for some time now.
“Recently, an article was published in which we discussed the possible future direction of Palworld and ideas for continuing the game for a long time,” Pocketpair community manager ‘Bucky’ writes on Discord.
“In fact, this interview was conducted several months ago. At that time, we were still considering the best way forward for Palworld to create a long-lasting game that continues to grow. We are still discussing this internally, as it is quite challenging to find the ideal path, but we have already decided that the F2P/Games as a Service approach is not suitable for us.
“Palworld was never designed with that model in mind, and it would require too much work to adapt the game at this point. Additionally, we are very aware that this just isn’t what our players want, and we always put our players first.
“We are still considering skins and DLC for Palworld in [the] future as a means to support development, but we will discuss this with you all again as we get closer to that point. For now, our priority remains making Palworld the best game possible.”
“We apologize for any concern this may have caused, and we hope this clarifies our position.” If you can ever play Palworld free though, we’ll be sure to let you know.
If you’re exploring the game and want some help we’ve got your back with a complete Palworld Pal list, alongside a complete breakdown of the Palworld map too.
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