The miracle of Palworld isn’t its popularity, it’s that it exists at all

polygon.com:

How the hell did Palworld happen? In a recent blog post, Takuro Mizobe, the CEO and co-founder of the studio behind the latest mega-hit, provides some clarity. The answer isn’t what any gaming veteran would call “proper game development.” But maybe that’s the secret.

Although Palworld recently hit the second-highest number of concurrent players on Steam, its success was far from assured. The studio worked with several key members who had no or little experience in game development. At the start, it took Pocketpair founder Mizobe an entire month to create one monster model. Mizobe had wanted to make 100 of them. Even other basic organization practices, like creating a budget for the project, didn’t happen.

For these reasons and many more, Mizobe has likened the creation and release of Palworld to being a “miracle.” It was a miracle that the team was actually able to make it. It seemed like a miracle that it was fun. Now, it’s become one of the biggest games on Steam and has sold over 6 million copies at time of publication. From this perspective, Palworld appears to be the fruit of not one miracle, but many. However, if Mizobe’s account shows us anything, it’s that each of these miracles happened because of the people involved — an unusual mix of veterans, up-and-comers, and a junior high graduate with a knack for animation.

In case you’re new to it, Palworld is the latest hit sensation in games. On the surface, it sort of looks like “Pokémon, but with guns.” However, the game, which is out in Steam Early Access now, is much more than that. Sure, it has its fair share of cute Pokémon-like creatures, but it also contains a blend of open-world RPG exploration and survival elements. Prior to Palworld, Pocketpair released three games: Overdungeon, Craftopia, andAI: Art Impostor. According to Mizobe, Palworld couldn’t have happened without any of these games.

“If it weren’t for the phantom first game, which was never released, Overdungeon would not have been born.