Palworld’s creators are paying the Kenzera devs to make a horror game about the entertainment industry

Here’s your feelgood story for the weekend, possibly: the creators of megahit Palworld are using some of their Palbucks to set up a new publishing arm, and their first project as publisher is an untitled horror game from Surgent Studios, the struggling developers of Tales Of Kenzera: ZAU.

Intriguingly, this doesn’t appear to be the “Project Uso” Surgent revealed last October, which founder Abubakar Salim described as both a reflection on the experience of fatherhood and “a cross between an RPG and a beat ’em up power fantasy”. According to Salim, that game was set in the same world as the studio’s debut Afrofuturist platformer. Their new game for Pocketpair isn’t. Instead, it’s being positioned as a game “about” the entertainment industry.

“Both Surgent and Pocketpair are well-versed in taking risks,” Salim comments in statements shared with GamesIndustry.biz. “We noticed a pattern in the entertainment industry, and Pocketpair has given us the opportunity to make a horror game about it.”

This doesn’t mean there won’t be another Kenzera game, mind. “We’re still in an earnest conversation about further projects set in the Tales of Kenzera universe, but this will be a standalone piece: a mile marker between where we’ve come from and where we’re going,” Salim added.

It’s certainly a timely turn of events for Surgent. While pretty well-reviewed, Tales Of Kenzera appears to have sold much worse than hoped. Surgent laid off around a dozen staff in July last year, just three months after release, and subsequently put their whole games division on hiatus.

It’s also a timely turn of events for Pocketpair, who are currently being sued by Nintendo for patent infringement. In case you’ve been living under a boulder since last winter, the studio’s reputation-making poach-me-do has plenty in common with the Pokémon series, though Pocketpair appear secure, at least, against the separate charge of copyright theft.

Salim’s canned statements about Pocketpair “taking risks” ring true here, though I’m not sure they accurately describe the game’s design. Palworld ain’t too bad as monster-bagging base-builders go, but it won’t be winning any awards for imagination.

All of which leaves me curious about the above “pattern in the entertainment industry” Surgent intend to target. Salim has been outspoken on the subject of racism in the games industry and community, so perhaps that’ll be the focus. Or perhaps the Pal-published game will pit you against some rotund, mustachioed lawyers who are accompanied by cuddly electric pissmonsters that look absolutely nothing like Pikachu.