Two of Tencent‘s premier studios are working on their own version of Palworld following the massive success of the Pocket Pair-developed title.
According to Bloomberg, citing “people familiar with the matter”, two of Tencent’s studios – TiMi and Lightspeed – are developing mobile games in the Palworld style. That means they will likely feature elements of survival, crafting, stylistic violence, and of course, allying with a range of creatures.
The teams are said to be autonomous studios within Tencent, and both are believed to have landed on the idea of a Palworld-esque game at the same time.
Palworld achieved worldwide phenomenon status earlier this year, landing over 20 million sales in a month and becoming Xbox Game Pass’ biggest third-party launch in history.
Tencent is said to be on the hunt for the next big success on the level of Honor of Kings, Tencent’s 2015 MOBA that’s still going strong to this day – and due for another Western launch this year.
The game was the second highest-grossing mobile title in the market at the end of 2023, beaten only by the multi-billion powerhouse Monopoly GO.
Aim to game
Tencent’s development of new mobile games comes as the publisher is refocusing on own-IP projects, as seen in its apparent pulling of hundreds of workers away from Assassin’s Creed Jade to focus on its internal party game DreamStar – the company’s answer to NetEase’s hit UGC-powered party game Eggy Party.
Adding two more internal games to its lineup also follows Tencent’s plan to make “the biggest bets around games that either iterate on a successful IP … or games that are iterating around proven gameplay success within a niche”.
