Palworld update 1.1 is on the way, and while it won't be another 1.0-sized overhaul, Pocketpair comms and publishing lead John Buckley says the next big patch is doing "something that players have been screaming at us to do."
Speaking with GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2026, Buckley examines the shift in development at Pocketpair following the release of Palworld 1.0. He says the studio's overall process and outlook are "very, very different" today.
"It was a big sigh of relief that we got it out and it worked out," he begins. "We still have pools of feedback, we still have feed of bug reports and stuff. It is a weird vibe. We know we're gonna do something. Of course we are. Palworld's not finished. Of course we're gonna do something more with it.
"We announced 1.1 kind of indirectly," Bucky continues. In August, he clarified that update 1.1 won't be some grand, yearlong project after players, in response to a social media call for suggestions, proposed enormous additions like an entire new continent.
Mild Palworld 1.0 spoilers ahead.
"We teased, like, we're cooking something," he says. "Now what we're thinking of is, there's kind of two prongs to it. Narratively, Palworld 1.0 kind of wrapped up that thing. Players got to the tree, they figured out what was in the tree, they sorted that out. So it's hard to think about what we're going to do next.
"Internally, and I said it yesterday so I'm fine saying it, we're calling 1.0 kind of a soft prologue. You figured out what the tree was, and it crashed, and you landed on the beach. You wake up on the beach. Now let's show you what happens next."
And what does happen next? With Palworld 1.1, Buckley stresses that "it's not a huge thing, but we're doing something players have been screaming at us to do for a while. And we didn't want to do it for 1.0 because we didn't want it to get in the way of 1.0. We had so many things we wanted to do. And even though it's a big thing, a big specific feature we're doing for 1.1, we just didn't want it to take up space for 1.0. So now we feel more comfortable in that regard. Now we can do these other things that might not necessarily have been connected to what our vision of Palworld is."
