Del Walker, one of Naughty Dog’s senior lead artists, wrote on his X account that Palworld was a huge success, which he didn’t see as deserved.
He doubted this success, saying: They are cheating in some way. I have no proof of this but my development event tells me so.
He added: I know game development. It’s difficult. They could never have developed a game this good without cheating.
In reference to the possibility of using artificial intelligence to design characters or things like that.
This comment comes after the game achieved great success, being the most successful Japanese game that attracts players on Steam, in addition to achieving a number of simultaneous players exceeding one million, surpassing giant games such as Cyberpunk and Dota 2, becoming the third most successful game to achieve this number. It is preceded only by PUBG and Counter Strike 2.
While on the other hand, Naughty Dog Studio’s service game, The Last of Us Factions, was cancelled, which means that Naughty Dog Studio suffered from the woes of developing a service game, which is primarily experienced in narrative games. This may be the reason behind what Del Walker wrote, which is the feeling that this success is too difficult for a game of this modest size to achieve.
It is also noteworthy that The Last of Us 2 Remastered was released on the same day as Palworlds, and did not achieve the desired media momentum, due to Palworlds topping all media headlines.
What do you think about this proposal?