‘Palworld’ developer talks ‘RimWorld’ inspiration and map size in new Q&A

The developer of Palworld, the upcoming open-world survival game that tasks players with enslaving cute creatures, has shared that its greatest inspiration is RimWorld in a new Q&A.

Pocketpair Inc sifted through over one thousand questions from fans of Palworld sent in at the end of May, with CEO Takuro Mizobe and multi developer Hawkward covering the challenges of development, the in-game economy, the soundtrack and the post-launch extras.

On the topic of the size of the game’s world, it’s approximately 16 kilometres squared, which is comparable with Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Metal Gear Solid 5 and State of Decay.

Mizobe admitted that while it isn’t remotely like the scale of The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom, but it is on par with “other open world games that are recently released”. Additionally, the speed with which the player travels through the map will make it “feel different”.

The challenge of harmonising the cartoony and the realistic elements of the Palworld‘s art style has been a difficult one to resolve, revealed Mizobe. Switching to Unreal Engine 5 has allowed the team to use its highly realistic technology and maintain the more stylised at the same time.

But, on the topic of the design goals of the game, the CEO said that Palworld shares a lot of similarities with RimWorld. “We started thinking from the point of, ‘How to make a colony sim aspect of RimWorld a little more interesting in a 3D world?’” he explained.

“We came up with the idea of combining [third person shooter] elements, colony sim elements, and survival craft elements, but how can we combine them well?” he continued. “That was the biggest challenge there.”

Palworld is targeting a release in early access in January 2024 on Steam.

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