It's a miracle that Palworld exists, according to the studio founder: 'It was the antithesis of proper game development'

GamesActionPalworldIt’s a miracle that Palworld exists, according to the studio founder: ‘It was the antithesis of proper game development’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Takuro Mizobe, Pocketpair)

Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe over an image of Palworld

But before all that, a few days prior to launch, the head of Palworld developer Pocketpair wrote alengthy blog postabout everything that went wrong during its extremelyunmethodical development. From the lack of a concrete budget to a completely inexperienced team, the game’s completion and successful launch are mind-boggling.

I translated the most surprising anecdotes from Pocketpair CEO / Palworld producer Takuro Mizobe, who called Palworld’s creation “the antithesis of proper game development.”

Palworld had no budget and the producer still doesn’t know exactly how much it cost to make

“No sane company would start developing a game without a budget,” Takuro Mizobe said. “But Pocketpair is not a sane company.”

Before the small Tokyo-based developer began work on Palworld in earnest, it first spent three months developing a trailer. “If the response to the trailer was poor, it wouldn’t be worth making the game in the first place. That’s why we didn’t even bother making a budget to start.

Initially, I intended to make Palworld in one year. I didn’t have any intention to make a major title, and I had no desire to spend years working on the same thing. But with only 10 of us on the team to start, I began to realize how impossible that would be.

“So I started asking myself—what’s the budget? When the balance in our bank account reached zero, we could always just borrow money or release money just before the company went bankrupt. We had about two years of runway. I decided to just keep working without stressing about the budget because all I was worried about was getting it done as fast as possible.”

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

No one on the team knew how to animate characters

(Image credit: Pocketpair)

Palworld early access

Although Palworld introduces over 100 unique monsters, or Pals, developers lacked the skills they needed to animate them, with many having no experience in 3D modeling:

“I casually started designing Parlworld as a 3D monster collecting action game. Then I realized that it took me an entire month to make just one 3D model alone. When we worked on Craftopia, we’d just purchased pre-made assets. We had never designed our own before.

“As more Pals came to be, I realized with horror that the skeletons for each monster were totally different. They all needed around 20 unique animations, things like walking, running, jumping, attacking…the industry average time it takes to animate a single motion is one day. One hundred monsters times 20 animations equals 2,000 days of work. We only realized this about six months into development.

“A staffing agency set us up with a veteran motion designer named Ryohei Adachi. The first day he came in, he saw that we hadn’t even done any rigging. (I didn’t even know what game rigging was at that point.) Creating animations for 100 unique monsters without rigging would be like building a pyramid without using heavy machinery. It just wasn’t possible, he told us. Adachi was really the one who completed Palworld. He was the only veteran we had on the team.”

All code had to be scrapped when the company switched from Unity to Unreal Engine 4—and no one on the team had any UE4 experience

Palworld guides(Image credit: Pocket Pair)Best Pals: What to catch earlyPalworld roadmap: The early access planPalworld mods: Best tweaks to installPalworld multiplayer: How to co-opPalworld dedicated server: Full-time PalsPalworld breeding guide: Get started with cake and eggs

Palworld guides

(Image credit: Pocket Pair)Best Pals: What to catch earlyPalworld roadmap: The early access planPalworld mods: Best tweaks to installPalworld multiplayer: How to co-opPalworld dedicated server: Full-time PalsPalworld breeding guide: Get started with cake and eggs

(Image credit: Pocket Pair)

Palworld Black Marketeer - Petting a Pal

Best Pals: What to catch earlyPalworld roadmap: The early access planPalworld mods: Best tweaks to installPalworld multiplayer: How to co-opPalworld dedicated server: Full-time PalsPalworld breeding guide: Get started with cake and eggs

Unreal Engine has surged in popularity in recent years thanks tolowered royaltiesand is broadly considered a better choice for 3D games and advanced graphics than Unity. This led the team at Pocketpair to make the leap to Unreal Engine 4 following the development of Palworld’s first trailer. But migrating from one engine to another isn’t simple, and the vast majority of what had been developed had to be rebuilt from scratch.

“The only things that we could salvage were the 3D models. But even then, we couldn’t use most of the assets we had bought.”

Just before releasing the first Palworld trailer, Mizobe received an email from a freelance engineer named Hiroto Matsutani completely out of the blue. Boasting 10 years of experience, the team decided to take a chance on a stranger.

“We took a chance and hired him. After that, we brought on five more engineers to work on the project, but none of them had UE experience. I let Matsutani train them, and he did an incredible job.

“This is just another miracle that led to Palworld becoming reality.”

The dev team turned down their future star artist when she first applied to the company

(Image credit: Pocketpair)

Palworld - a player rides on top of a Grintale in an autumn woods

The woman behind Palworld’s creature designs didn’t make it through the vetting process when first applying to work for the company. While Mizobe liked her portfolio, he worried that she wasn’t a good fit based on the uniqueness of her designs.

“I thought, if she comes to work with us, she won’t be able to make the most of her talents, so I rejected her. Three months later, she sent me a DM. I was amazed that she would be so bold after I had rejected her so recently, so I read her messages. In the end, I hired her, and she drew the majority of Palworld’s characters.

Palworld is an amalgamation of happy accidents and pure luck. The fates aligned to see this eccentric game brought into existence, and although it’s already sold seven million copies in five days, more polish during early access might see another few million drawn into this wacky world of base building, animal cruelty, and black market deals.

More about actionAll Zenless Zone Zero 1.5 livestream codesAssassin’s Creed Shadows is delayed again ‘to better incorporate player feedback gathered over the past three months’LatestThe Last of Us season 2 trailer is a brief look at a story you should probably just play yourself in AprilSee more latest►

More about actionAll Zenless Zone Zero 1.5 livestream codesAssassin’s Creed Shadows is delayed again ‘to better incorporate player feedback gathered over the past three months’

More about action

All Zenless Zone Zero 1.5 livestream codesAssassin’s Creed Shadows is delayed again ‘to better incorporate player feedback gathered over the past three months’

Zenless Zone Zero codes - Miyabi and section four

All Zenless Zone Zero 1.5 livestream codes

Image of Yasuke striking an enemy in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is delayed again ‘to better incorporate player feedback gathered over the past three months’

LatestThe Last of Us season 2 trailer is a brief look at a story you should probably just play yourself in AprilSee more latest►

Latest

The Last of Us season 2 trailer is a brief look at a story you should probably just play yourself in April

the last of us season 2 trailer

The Last of Us season 2 trailer is a brief look at a story you should probably just play yourself in April

See more latest►

Most Popular

The Witcher 3’s now 2-year-old bonus quest is our first taste of the ‘vibe’ CD Projekt is going for in The Witcher 4

2024 was the year updates for old games beat out all the new ones for me

Train like you game with this adventure-inspired workout

‘It’s simply impossible to make a difficulty level that’s just right for all players’: How Final Fantasy 14’s lead battle designer has been playing a precarious balancing game for Dawntrail’s dungeons and raids

Please join me in getting super excited for all the cool looking survival games coming in 2025 (and beyond)

Competitive shooters are at a crucial crossroads in 2025: ‘sweaty’ teamplay vs. casual fun

Call of Duty’s $28 Squid Game skins are the perfect crossover for our capitalist dystopia, and Activision knows exactly what it’s doing

These are the 14 biggest upcoming RPGs of 2025—get ready for another amazing year for the genre

Five new Steam games you probably missed (January 6, 2025)

I’ve seen enough: No more forcing singleplayer studios to make mediocre live service games

HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review4Ikea Utespelare desk review5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review

HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS

1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads

A bunch of the best Steam Deck accessories on a blue background.

1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads

Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads

2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop

Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop

3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most

Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most

4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands

Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands

5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested

Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested

1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review

Thank Goodness You’re Here review

1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review

Thank Goodness You’re Here! review

2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review

Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review

3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review

WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review

4Ikea Utespelare desk review

Ikea Utespelare desk review

5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review

Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review

Palworld had no budget and the producer still doesn’t know exactly how much it cost to make#

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals#

No one on the team knew how to animate characters#

All code had to be scrapped when the company switched from Unity to Unreal Engine 4—and no one on the team had any UE4 experience#

The dev team turned down their future star artist when she first applied to the company#

Palworld had no budget and the producer still doesn’t know exactly how much it cost to make

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

No one on the team knew how to animate characters

All code had to be scrapped when the company switched from Unity to Unreal Engine 4—and no one on the team had any UE4 experience

The dev team turned down their future star artist when she first applied to the company