No, Palworld isn’t going free-to-play

Just last week, Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe suggested that it’s kicked around the idea of making Palworld into a more proper live service game. This has now been shot down thanks to the very thing that he said would determine the future of the game — its fans.

On Twitter, the official Palworld account addressed the situation, noting that the interview was actually months ago and, at that time, the possibility was on the table. Since then, the team has made the decision that the free-to-play and games as a service model simply doesn’t suit it and will continue with its current course.

This isn’t that shocking — a lot of studios are making the move to the live service model, making that genre kinda saturated and Pocketpair doesn’t want to worry about the consistent content updates it would need to implement in order to keep the train going. Even a year down the line, though, it’s still internally trying to track what the best path is for the game.

In our 8/10 review, reviewer Julian Barber notes that the game, even in early access, “far exceeded the expectations” he set for it. He also noted: “The exploration can feel challenging but fair, and the rewarding feeling you get from leveling up your base or catching a Pal with an extremely low catch rate is amazing. “

Editor-in-Chief

Gabe has been a gamer since he was young, playing games like Pajama Sam, Freddi Fish, Guitar Hero, and whatever looked cool on GameFly. Ever since 2018, he's been infatuated with the inner workings of the gaming and entertainment industries, covering a wide range of topics from video games to TV and film. Starting as a contributor for PSX Extreme, he's worked his way up to its Managing Editor. Using what's he learned over the years, he founded Smash Jump to remind everyone to smash jump.