Palworld 's creator wants the development studio to stay small because "big-budget triple-A games are not for us." Palworld certainly performed like a big-budget blockbuster as the monster-taming survival game had over two million Steam players logged in at the same time, rivaling the very biggest hits on the platform. Pocketpair CEO and director Takuro Mizobe now claims the team won't substantially grow, despite the game's staggering success. "We are and will remain a small studio," Mizobe explains in an interview with Bloomberg. "I want to make multiple small games. Big-budget triple-A games are not for us." The studio previously developed card-battler Overdungeon, party drawing game AI: Art Imposter, and the genre-blending open-worlder Craftopia, though all were relatively inexpensive projects. alworld itself reportedly cost around one billion yen (or $6.7 million) to develop, a number that's minuscule compared to the unsustainable budg...

  Like returning to a beloved amusement park as an adult, Contra: Operation Galuga instantly reconnected me with the 2D run-and-gunners from the quarter-slinging arcade days of my youth. And just like revisiting a childhood fancy, I quickly remembered why I had so much fun with this series, while also feeling a bit underwhelmed by how little things have evolved in all that time. This reimagining of the original Contra offers a perfectly adequate modernization of a bonafide classic that makes for an enjoyable jaunt alongside your friends, but it’s also perhaps overly faithful to its predecessors, allowing for only the slightest tweaks. I don’t regret the handful of hours it took me and my buds to get through all of Operation Galuga, but it’s one of those games that’s likely to fade from my memory just as quickly. This sidescroller plays it safe with the reliable, if not particularly exciting, formula of fighting through stages filled with enemies before taking on a boss. Despite bei...