Palworld developer’s next game won’t be a huge-budget affair, CEO says

The CEO of Palworld developer Pocketpair says the studio’s next game won’t be a big-budget affair.

In an interview with GameSpark, CEO Takuro Mizobe was asked about previous comments that Palworld was made with the income generated from the studio’s previous game Craftopia.

Upon being asked whether the same would happen with Pocketpair’s next game, Mizobe explained that it woudn’t be possible to make a huge game with all the income generated from Palworld, due to a lack of both infastructure and desire.

Up until now, our games have been like a ‘snowball effect’, Mizobe said. “We first made Overdungeon, which did okay, and then we made Craftopia, which also did well, so we used the profits from that to develop Palworld.

“However, although we don’t talk about it much, the sales of Palworld are in the tens of billions of yen. If we were to make a game based on those sales, as we have done in the past, it would be a huge production that would go beyond an AAA title.

“We’re not mature enough as an organisation to make such a game, or rather, we don’t have that kind of system in place at all.

“In addition, when you ask if there are any games that we want to make using such a huge budget, the answer is no.

“We want to pursue things that we think are interesting as indie games, and while it’s good to have a large budget, but we can’t spend a budget that is beyond our means.”

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Palworld has been the big surprise success story of 2024. Released in January via Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview, the game attracted 25 million players in its first month, according to Pocketpair.

Last month the studio partnered with Sony Music and Aniplex to form a new joint venture called Palworld Entertainment, which will be responsible for “developing the reach of the intellectual property and for expanding commercial business endeavors”.

Elsewhere in the GameSpark interview, Mizobe explained that the deal allowed the studio to continue working on the game, while Palworld Entertainment can focus on other elements such as licensing and merchandise.