‘Players first’: Palworld devs’ stance on free to play future pretty clear

If you were waiting on Palworld to become free to play like most live-service titles have become these days, the developers say you’re out of luck.

Palworld’s developers issued a statement on X (formerly Twitter) on Sept. 14 clarifying Pocketpair’s decision to steer clear of an F2P or game-as-a-service model for the hit survival crafting experience. The air-clearing stance was was aimed at allaying community-wide concerns that had popped up after a report indicated the devs might be considering switching to F2P in the future.

Referring to the interview with the ASCII.JP, which was apparently conducted “months ago,” Pocketpair wrote: “At that time, we were still considering the best way forward for Palworld to create a long-lasting game that continues to grow.”

The developers are still discussing Palworld’s future constantly, but they are pretty clear on the free-to-play debate. “It is quite challenging to find the ideal path, but we have already decided that the F2P/GaaS approach is not suitable for us,” the September statement read.

In fact, Palworld was always meant to be a buy-to-play game and “was never designed with that model in mind.” Now that it’s live, things haven’t changed, with the devs even admitting “it would require too much work to adapt at this point.” That, alongside a promise that the Palworld team has been listening to feedback and is “very aware this just isn’t what our players want,” should help calm the panicked community somewhat. “We always put our players first,” the Palworld devs added.

There are some things being discussed, the Pocketpair team said, like skins and DLC to “support development,” but it’s planning to discuss the idea with the community before moving forward. “For now, our priority remains making Palworld the best game possible.”

Now that the air is cleared, we’re certainly excited to see the ongoing evolution of our favorite Pal-hunting game in the coming months and years to come.