Garena, the Singapore-based publisher behind Free Fire, has officially licensed Palworld’s IP from Pocketpair to build a mobile MMORPG called Palworld Online. The announcement went out on August 3, and the game is set to launch sometime in 2026 for iOS and Android. Garena’s official press release is the primary source for the details below.
If you’ve been following Palworld since its early access launch in January 2024, you already know the pitch: an open-world survival game where you catch creatures called Pals, put them to work on your base, and occasionally arm them with guns. It sold millions of copies within days and drew comparisons — some affectionate, some legally pointed — to Pokémon. Garena’s new project takes that formula and rebuilds it as a persistent online world meant to be played on a phone.
What Garena Actually Announced
Palworld Online isn’t a straight port of the PC game. Garena is developing and publishing it under license from Pocketpair, with an original story and side content written specifically for this version. The core pitch is a shared, persistent open world where players explore, capture Pals, and build settlements they can visit on each other’s turf.
A few specifics from the announcement:
- Cooperative progression — players can group up, build shared bases, and take on large-scale PvE encounters together
- PvP modes — for players who’d rather compete than cooperate
- Automation via Pals — captured creatures can be deployed to handle crafting, production, and base defense, echoing the automation loop that made the original game addictive
- Mobile-first controls — a touch interface with optional one-tap actions for building, relocating structures, and managing Pals
Garena’s president, Terry Zhao, framed the project as an attempt to bring Palworld’s scale to mobile without stripping out what made it work on PC. Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe pointed to Garena’s track record running live-service mobile games as the reason for the partnership. Neither has released gameplay footage yet, so how well the automation and base-building systems actually translate to a touchscreen is still an open question.
It’s Not the Only Palworld Game Coming to Phones
Here’s the part that trips people up: Garena isn’t the only company with a mobile Palworld license. Krafton — through its PUBG Studios division — signed a separate deal with Pocketpair back in 2024 for its own mobile adaptation, described as a closer, more faithful translation of the original PC game rather than an MMO reimagining.
So there will be two Palworld mobile games, from two different publishers, aimed at two different audiences.
| Palworld Online (Garena) | Palworld Mobile (Krafton) | |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher | Garena, under license from Pocketpair | Krafton, via PUBG Studios |
| Format | New MMORPG spin-off with original story | Closer port of the existing PC game |
| Announced | August 2026 | 2024 |
| Target release | 2026 | Not yet confirmed |
| Focus | Shared open world, group PvE/PvP, base-building with strangers | Faithful recreation of the single-player-style survival loop |
Pocketpair splitting the license this way isn’t unheard of — it’s a similar move to how Pokémon spun off into Pokémon Go and Pokémon Unite alongside the mainline games. Whether Palworld’s audience wants two separate mobile experiences, or whether one cannibalizes attention from the other, will become clearer once both titles have actual release dates.
Why This Game Exists: A Quick Recap of Palworld’s Rise
For readers who missed the original wave, Palworld launched into early access on Steam and Xbox in January 2024 and immediately became one of that year’s most talked-about releases, hitting the third-highest peak concurrent player count Steam has ever recorded. Part of the attention came from its Pal designs looking a lot like Pokémon, which led Nintendo and The Pokémon Company to file a patent lawsuit against Pocketpair later that year — a dispute that’s still winding through Japanese courts and is generally understood to target specific capture-mechanic patents rather than the character designs themselves.
That lawsuit hasn’t stopped Pocketpair from expanding the IP. The game later launched on PlayStation 5, hit its 1.0 release, and now has two separate mobile spin-offs in development. Whatever you think of the Pokémon similarities, Palworld clearly built enough of an audience to justify multiple platform bets.
What We Still Don’t Know
The announcement is light on specifics that usually matter most to players: no gameplay trailer, no monetization details, no confirmation of cross-play with the PC version, and no firm release window beyond “2026.” Garena will likely open pre-registration ahead of a closed beta, which is the standard playbook for mobile MMO launches, but nothing has been confirmed on that front yet.
Worth watching for as more details surface:
- Whether Palworld Online supports cross-progression with the original PC/console game, or starts fresh
- How monetization works — this genre is notorious for aggressive gacha and pay-to-progress systems
- Server structure — one global shard, regional servers, or something else
- How it handles the same firearm and creature-capture mechanics that drew Nintendo’s lawsuit in the first place
Further Reading
- Official press release: Garena Unveils Palworld Online (Games Press)
- Garena’s official site
- Pocketpair’s official site
- Palworld’s official Steam page
- Anime News Network’s coverage of the announcement
- MMORPG.com’s breakdown of Palworld Online’s features
- GameDeveloper on Krafton’s separate Palworld mobile deal
- PocketGamer.biz on the original Krafton–Pocketpair licensing announcement
