Nope, it seems monster-taming hit Palworld has no secret investments flooding in apart from the money players are willing to spend on the famous 'Pokemon-with-guns' phenomenon. Pocketpair's head of publishing and communications John 'Bucky' Buckley said so in response to online claims that Palworld was possibly made with investment from tech behemoth Tencent, a company that has its fingers dipped into countless game studios, from Riot Games (League of Legends) and FromSoftware (Elden Ring) to Larian Studios (Baldur's Gate 3) and, reportedly, Highguard maker Wildlight Entertainment. "I didn't expect to see Palworld somehow become involved," Bucky writes on BlueSky. "Palworld has no investors, no backers, no sponsors." Highguard was reportedly secretly funded by Tencent, and I don't know what hope a multiplayer FPS has in 2026 Palworld lead hits back at claims Pocketpair "dgaf" about its survival hit, jokes "we should drop 1.0 right now" Palworld lead admits the team can get "swept up" in negativity Many people have also pointed out that Tencent's senior vice president Steve Ma is on the advisory board for Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards show - alongside the heads on Nintendo, Microsoft Gaming, and many others - with some going down the rabbit hole and theorizing that that's why Highguard's reveal trailer managed to secure the closing slot at the TGAs 2025. That in itself doesn't mean anything, but Bucky also took the opportunity to clarify that "Geoff, or anyone for that matter, has no stake or share in Palworld," and The Game Awards organizer only posted about the survival sim so much because he probably "enjoyed the excitement" around its much-hyped launch. "We are 100% independent and self-funded." Palworld dev Pocketpair won't hire anyone with no Steam playtime, CEO explains: "If an applicant's number of Steam games played is 0, we will, in principle, pass them on"