Aside from co-op shooter Helldivers 2, there hasn’t been a hit nearly as massive — and unexpected — as Palworld in recent memory. The survival, building, and action game generated a ton of buzz when it first launched in Early Access a couple of months back, attracting controversy for its considerably less wholesome take on Pokemon and a huge player base on the strength of its open-world design. It turns out that achieving such a hit wasn’t even all that expensive in game making terms, as evidenced by the fact that Palworld only cost 1% of Star Citizen’s current funding amount to create.
Palworld‘s makers at Pocketpair have now shared details on just how much money it took to get the survival game launched. In an interview with Bloomberg, Pocketpair founder Takuro Mizobe explained that his studio’s hit was made for less than ¥1 billion ($6.7 million) and by a team of only 55 people. He also notes that he isn’t very interested in trying to make bigger games that require more employees and outside investment.
This is particularly noteworthy when put in context with the enormous budgets that go into making other games. Star Citizen, for instance, continues to pull in an enormous amount of funding. The space game has collected $670,285,805 USD / £526,238,034 at the time of writing. In comparison, Palworld’s budget is absolutely minuscule, especially as factored into an overall level of success that’s seen it hit a concurrent player count that’s peaked at over two million people on Steam alone.
If you’re playing the game, check out our rundown of Palworld bosses. Or, if you’re looking to shake up the experience a bit, take a look at our choices for the top Palworld mods.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.