What Pocketpair Said About Palworld's Future: No Paid Expansion, Spin-offs and Switch 2

Between October 20 and 28, 2026, Pocketpair said more about its plans for Palworld than in any week since 1.0 launched. There was a long interview by John “Bucky” Buckley, the studio’s head of publishing and communications, with MP1st; his clarifications on X about the Side by Side update; and a conversation between CEO Takuro Mizobe and Video Games Chronicle about platforms.

Here is what matters for players and server admins.

1. 1.1 is small on purpose

Side by Side, announced on October 20 for Winter 2026, is version 1.1 and is not a huge update. In Bucky’s words to MP1st: “While 1.1 isn’t a massive update, we do think players will be pretty happy with it!”

He has been saying this since August, when he asked fans for suggestions on X, got 1,700 replies and had to warn that “things like ‘add a new continent’, ‘add 20 more levels’ and similarly massive undertakings are not really what we want to do with v1.1”. At Gamescom in September he explained what it is: “a big specific feature” that “players have been screaming at us to do for a while”, kept out of 1.0 so it would not take space from the launch.

1.0, he said, is treated internally as a “soft prologue” of the story. 1.1 starts to show “what happens next” after the player wakes up on the beach.

2. Updates stay free

The question that comes up most in communities after a 1.0 launch is whether paid DLC is coming. Pocketpair’s answer, for now, is no.

Bucky said the studio is comfortable continuing to support the game with free updates and that the team does not “weigh future content by whether it should be monetised”. A large paid expansion “in the distant future” is not ruled out, but none is in development or planned.

He also said he does not consider Palworld a live-service game: there is no season calendar or battle pass. “We want the content itself to determine the format, rather than the other way around.” A small idea can become a patch; a big one, a larger update.

3. Spin-offs yes, metaverse no

Palworld has a growing list of side projects: Palfarm (a farming sim), Krafton’s mobile game, Garena’s Palworld Online, the dating sim More Than Just Pals and the physical card game.

For Bucky, that is a deliberate choice. Ideas that deserve their own game get their own game, instead of being stacked as “modes” inside Palworld, Fortnite-style. Spin-offs do not replace the main game, which he called “extremely important” to the studio. And, in his words, “maximizing revenue as quickly as possible isn’t what drives our creative decisions”.

4. New Pals, but with purpose

1.0 added 72 Pals at once, taking the roster past 280. Do not expect another jump that size soon.

“We try not to think of new Pals as simply adding another number to the roster,” Bucky said. “Rather than saying, ‘We need to release 100 new Pals with the next update,’ we try to add Pals in a meaningful way.” The bar: “every Pal should have something that gives players a reason to remember it”, whether design, abilities, work suitability, combat role, personality “or sometimes just something strange or funny about it”. He admits balance gets harder with every Pal, and that adjustments come from play data and feedback after each release.

For the endgame, the goal is long-term objectives and challenges without hurting the freedom that defines the game.

5. Switch 2: “we’d love to have those conversations”

On October 28, CEO Takuro Mizobe told Video Games Chronicle that the Switch 2 “is a really amazing platform”, especially important in Japan, and that “if there’s ever a future where we have the opportunity to discuss or consider bringing Palworld to the Switch platform, we’d love to have those conversations”.

It is a change of tone from 2024, when he said a port to the original Switch “might be hard for technical reasons”. But nothing has been announced, and the lawsuit filed by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company against Pocketpair is still ongoing. The studio does not comment on the case.

What this means in practice

Players: the next update comes in winter, free, with one central community-requested feature. Do not expect a new map or dozens of Pals.
Server admins: a contained 1.1 should be a smooth migration, but watch for new options in PalWorldSettings.ini, like the ones added in 1.0.3 and 1.0.4. Our dedicated server guide will be updated when the notes are out.
PalBoard: the Pal, item and technology catalogues are on 1.0.5 and will be updated as soon as Side by Side lands.

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