You'd think that huge corporations trying to replicate your [[link]] success with clones of your game would be a bit of a kick in the teeth, but Palworld CEO Takura Mizobe couldn't seem happier.
As reported by , Mizobe took to Twitter to respond to the recent announcement of Auroria—a Palworld-like being developed by Tianjin Wumai Technology and published by none other than Tencent. Auroria appears to have all the trappings of Pocketpair's own creature capture game: cute critters, co-op survival sandbox, base building, except this one comes in a more interstellar flavour.
Posting a screenshot of Auroria , Mizobe wrote: "Tencent is already making a Palworld clone game! In China, many companies are simultaneously developing mobile clones of Palworld, and the budgets are in the 10 billion yen [approximately $64.6 million USD] range, 10 times larger than Palworld's… Next year, we might see many -level creature (or bishojo) raising games… These are incredible times."
Mizobe seems surprisingly jazzed for a game that could end up serving as stiff competition. Then again, Palworld itself isn't exactly a unique concoction, but what is these days? It'll be interesting to see if bigger, higher-budget attempts at Pocketpair's formula will capture the same lightning-in-a-bottle effect that Palworld had earlier this year. The game absolutely gripped folk when it released in January, becoming the . It with, and, while the hype has significantly died down, it still boasts a steady [[link]] concurrent player count of between 70,000 and 100,000 players.
It's unlikely any follow-up will reach those heights, but more competition is always a good thing regardless. It'll be interesting to see what Tencent cooks up with a higher budget, and if Mizobe is right about their being a ton more in the works, I'll be excited to see how they evolve and differentiate from the current formula.