Palworld remains one of the biggest successes of 2024, despite it fading a bit from public memory. It has retained a healthy enough playerbase, but there are questions about its future given that it’s a buy-once game that wants to keep doing indefinite updates without a microtransaction model.

Now, Palworld is pushing back on a recent report that said it was potentially changing to free-to-play with a games-as-service live model. It is…not doing that, and says the interview where those statements were made was old, and this path is not on the table, even if it was previously discussed. Here’s part of that statement:

“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.

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/GaaS 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.”

However, the game does need to be sustainable over the long term if it is going to continue to add content, as it has had a number of free updates so far, some of which have indeed resulted in large playercount surges.

The options being discussed now are things like cosmetic skins, which I would assume would be for both characters and Pals, but also paid DLC, which would be a more traditional path to monetization for a game that sold itself for a fixed price up front.

A few things can be true, that the live-service bubble is bursting to some extent, and many players are growing tired of that model. But we’ve also seen disasters when a game is not free-to-play, as recently happened with the $40 Concord. But it’s safe to say that game had a number of overwhelming problems Palworld does not face.

I do think it’s forward-thinking for Palworld to not consider a switch to free-to-play even if that would result in a temporary surge of players in favor of thinking of the long-term health of the game. I do not know what the long-term health of the game will be but at this point, yes, they do have a loyal playerbase they don’t want to disappoint, and have held onto them without being a live game in any traditional sense. We’ll see what they do.

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