Palworld CEO says turning the hit survival game into a live-service title would 'extend its lifespan,' but 'the most important thing is whether the players want it'

Palworld's developer Pocketpair is considering a potential shift to a free-to-play live service model, acknowledging the business benefits but emphasizing the challenges and ultimately, the importance of player preference.

Palworld could end up going down the free-to-play live service route in the future, according to the CEO of developer Pocketpair, but ultimately, the "most important thing is whether the players want it or not."

In a new interview with ASCII, which has been translated by Automaton (and verified using Google and DeepL), Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe discusses the future of Palworld, although he begins by clarifying that "things aren't decided yet" other than the fact that the hit survival game will continue to receive new content, like new Pals and maps. This aside, he notes that Palworld could take two directions, one of which is to evolve it into a live-service title. 

Mizobe clearly sees a potential benefit from going live-service: "When you think about it from a business perspective, making [Palworld] a live-service game would extend its lifespan and make it more stable in terms of profitability," he says. However, things aren't quite so simple. First and foremost, he notes, "the game was not initially designed with that approach in mind," which in turn would bring "many challenges" to the table if the devs went down that route. 

Otherwise, the all-important point is "whether the players want it or not." Acknowledging that Palworld would first have to become free-to-play, he notes that while other games like Fall Guys and PUBG have successfully made that move in the past, offering people who originally spent money to play them things like in-game items, it still took them "several years to make the shift." Mizobe adds: "While I understand that the live-service model is good for business, it's not that easy."

Like Mizobe noted right at the beginning, however, Pocketpair clearly hasn't decided one way or another whether this is a path the studio will tread. For now, we'll have to turn our focus to this year's Tokyo Game Show, where it's thought a Palworld PS5 port may be revealed.

For more games like Palworld, be sure to check out our roundup of the best survival games.