Recently, news emerged that Pocketpair was considering turning Palworld into a game-as-a-service or free-to-play title “to extend its lifespan and increase profitability,” but its future has now been firmly set.

It’s official: the developers of Palworld have chosen their path forward and rejected the idea of becoming a game as a service or a free-to-play model.

One of 2024’s most successful video games, Palworld is a survival title developed by Pocketpair, still in early access, with plenty of content and updates yet to come. Currently available on PC and Xbox Series X|S, and accessible via Game Pass for those who don’t want to purchase the full game, it looks like the game’s release on PS5 is just around the corner.

Just a few days ago, we reported that the director of Palworld was contemplating shifting the game to a service model to “extend its lifespan and increase profitability.” However, those plans are now officially a thing of the past, as Pocketpair has released a statement about the game’s future. Here’s what the studio said on their official X/Twitter account: “We are not going to change the business model of our game; it will continue to be buy-to-play, not a free-to-play or a game as a service.”

“An article was recently published where we discussed the possible future direction of Palworld and ideas for sustaining the game over the long term. This interview actually took place several months ago. At the time, we were still figuring out the best way to develop Palworld to make it a long-lasting, ever-growing game. We’re still discussing it internally, as it’s quite a challenge to find the ideal path, but we have already decided that the F2P/GaaS approach isn’t the right fit for us,” the statement explains.

Palworld Won’t Be a Free Game or a Game as a Service

Pocketpair continues by discussing plans for DLC over the coming years: “Palworld was never designed with that model in mind, and it would require too much work to adapt the game at this stage. Moreover, we are very aware that this is not what our players want, and we always put our players first. We are still considering the possibility of creating skins and DLC for Palworld in the future as a way to support development, but we will discuss this further with all of you when the time comes. For now, our priority is to make Palworld the best game it can be. We apologize for any concern this may have caused, and we hope this clarifies our position,” they conclude.