The year is 2026, and the echoes of Palworld's explosive 2024 launch, a launch that felt as sudden and overwhelming as a surprise party thrown by a volcano, still reverberate through the gaming industry. Yet, for Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe, the party's over, and the messy cleanup of confetti and existential questions about the future has begun. The central, gnawing dilemma? Whether to take the survival-crafting phenomenon, built on a foundation of Pokémon-with-guns absurdity and $29.99 purchases from 25 million players, and pivot it into the turbulent, whale-hunting waters of free-to-play live service. To Mizobe, the decision feels less like a strategic business move and more like trying to perform open-heart surgery on a jet engine mid-flight—the tools aren't right, and the patient might explode.

Mizobe's candid reflections paint a picture of a studio at a profound crossroads. From a cold, hard business perspective, the siren song of live-service is undeniable. It promises an expanded lifespan and a more "stable profitability," turning a one-time purchase into a recurring revenue stream as reliable as a metronome. However, Palworld was conceived and birthed as a buy-to-play experience. Retrofitting it with the complex plumbing of seasonal battle passes, cosmetic shops, and constant content drops is no simple feat. Mizobe himself highlighted the fundamental friction: "It is common for live-service games to be free-to-play... but Palworld is a buy-to-play, so it's difficult to turn it into a live-service game from the ground up." Suddenly asking millions of paying customers to accept a new, potentially microtransaction-heavy reality is a recipe for community backlash of epic proportions.

The Rocky Road of Reinvention

The studio is acutely aware that such a transition is a high-wire act without a net. Mizobe points to the long, arduous journeys of games like Fall Guys and PUBG as rare success stories. Their switches to free-to-play weren't overnight decisions but carefully managed evolutions over years, designed to minimize player pain. For Palworld, a sudden shift could feel less like an evolution and more like a hostile takeover of the game players already own. The studio is thus tiptoeing through a minefield of monetization ideas, desperate to find revenue streams that won't detonate their loyal fanbase. The brainstorming has gotten so desperate that even the once-unthinkable has been floated: in-game advertisements. Mizobe, with a dose of grim realism, quickly acknowledged this is a non-starter, noting that "Steam users hate ads"—a statement as universally true as the sky being blue and water being wet.

A Future on Multiple Fronts

While the free-to-play question looms large, Palworld's expansion isn't solely dependent on its business model. The game's ecosystem continues to grow. Originally available on PC and Xbox Series X/S, rumors and data-mined hints have persistently suggested a PlayStation 5 version is in the pipeline. A 2024 Tokyo Game Show spreadsheet listing added significant fuel to this fire, hinting that the chaotic charm of Pal-catching could soon invade living rooms dominated by a different console brand. This platform expansion represents a more traditional, and perhaps less risky, path to growth compared to the seismic shift of going free-to-play.

In the end, Pocketpair's challenge in 2026 is a classic tale of sustaining a viral hit. The initial tsunami of sales has receded, leaving behind the hard work of building a lasting coastline. Should they attempt to rebuild their island into a free-to-play tourist resort, hoping to attract endless new visitors with free entry but expensive souvenirs? Or should they focus on building higher-quality amenities (like a PS5 version and paid expansions) for the existing residents who already bought their plot of land? The decision Mizobe and his team make will determine whether Palworld becomes a enduring monument in the survival genre or a cautionary tale about the perils of pivoting too late, and too hard. For now, the only certainty is uncertainty, a feeling as familiar to the studio as the comforting glow of a Pal sphere at dusk.