Palworld 1.0 is "very much for the fans," so the Pocketpair devs "weren't really thinking about critic reception at all," lead says

Pocketpair head of publishing and communications John "Bucky" Buckley has explained why there aren't many reviews for Palworld after the game had its full release last month.

In response to a post about the low number of Palworld reviews on Metacritic in comparison to recent releases like Halo: Campaign Evolved and Beast of Reincarnation, Bucky notes that "we didn't send out press keys in advance," which was the case for the other titles.

As for why this is, he explains: "We weren't really thinking about critic reception at all, and we wanted the content of 1.0 to remain a secret and unspoiled right up to release so...we kept it all pretty close to our chest!"

Bucky says that "if we had gone the more traditional route and prioritised critic reception," then "we probably would have sent out press keys a month or so in advance." However, Bucky says that "Palworld 1.0 was very much for the fans, not for the industry."

Obviously, people are still free to review the game after it officially releases, but Bucky acknowledges that Palworld is "a game that requires a fairly significant time investment" adding, "I can't fault media for not wanting to put the time in post-release. No harm!"

As for future games however, Bucky does say that "maybe we'll try play the press/media game a bit more in future with Palfarm or something," while calling it "a side of the industry we aren't too experienced in."

Ultimately, Palworld has also been out for multiple years in early access, and is very much a known quantity which could also add to the lack of reviews for the full version when it released earlier this year. And in the end, it didn't really matter much in the long run as the game experienced a massive boost in concurrent players on Steam upon the release of 1.0.

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