Some feature requests sound wonderfully simple when reduced to a single sentence: let players dig into the ground; add an underwater world; make the map behave more like a fully malleable sandbox. But Pocketpair’s message is that these are not modest additions waiting for a sufficiently determined patch. They are potentially sequel-scale undertakings.

John “Bucky” Buckley, Pocketpair’s head of publishing and communications, has addressed recurring requests for terrain digging in Palworld with unusual bluntness. His core point is not merely that the team does not currently plan to add it. It is that doing so would require major changes to several of the game’s foundational systems. In his framing, a request to excavate the landscape is effectively a request for Palworld 2.

“These things are impossible,” Buckley said of the terrain-digging request, adding that the work would involve landscape and pathfinding reworks that could take years.

Underwater environments fall into the same bucket. Buckley identified them as another frequently requested addition whose apparent simplicity masks a much larger production cost. His question to the community is practical: would players and the developer really want an update delayed by roughly three years for one such feature? The implied answer is no.

Why digging is more than a new tool

The important distinction here is between adding a mechanic within an existing world and changing the rules that define the world itself. A new item, creature, activity, or limited area may be built around the game’s established terrain. Terrain deformation—letting players remove or reshape ground—changes that terrain dynamically and persistently.

Buckley specifically pointed to landscape work and pathfinding. Pathfinding is the set of systems that enables characters or creatures controlled by the game to determine where and how they can move. It has to account for walkable surfaces, barriers, slopes, routes, and destinations. When a map’s shape is fixed, designers and developers can build those assumptions around a known environment. If players can tunnel through a hill, carve an opening under a structure, or alter a route after the game is running, those assumptions can change at any moment.

That does not mean every game with digging needs the exact same solution. It does mean that Pocketpair is describing a request that reaches far beyond the animation of a shovel and the visual effect of dirt disappearing. The developer would have to consider how reshaped terrain interacts with movement, world layout, and the other systems that rely on stable land.

For players, that helps explain why “the game already has building and exploration, so why not digging?” is not necessarily a small leap in development terms. Existing mechanics can make an idea feel like a natural next step while the underlying implementation remains a substantial departure. Buckley says this mismatch between what appears straightforward to players and what is feasible inside development is a source of frustration, even as he understands why the request keeps coming up.

Related coverage includes Pocketpair Says Terrain Digging and Underwater Areas Would Be Palworld 2-Scale Work.

Underwater spaces raise the same scope question

Underwater environments can also sound like an obvious expansion of a game world: take the player below the surface, populate the space, and add things to discover. Yet Buckley grouped the request with terrain digging because it would apparently require years of development work rather than an ordinary update cycle.

The useful takeaway is not that players are wrong to want more places to explore. Requests are one way communities communicate what they value. The more relevant question is whether the desired feature fits the technical and production boundaries of the existing game. Pocketpair’s stated answer is that underwater areas do not fit those boundaries at a reasonable update-sized scale.

That phrasing matters. Buckley did not present the issue as a lack of interest in ambitious ideas; he framed digging and underwater content as work more appropriate to a future sequel. A sequel can begin with different assumptions about its world systems. An ongoing game, by contrast, must contend with the structure already in place and the impact of rebuilding it.

There is a useful community-management lesson in Buckley’s remarks. Fans commonly judge proposed additions by how much they would improve their personal experience. Developers also have to judge them by implementation time, knock-on effects, testing needs, and the opportunity cost of not making other updates during that period.

Opportunity cost, in this context, means what a team gives up by committing its time to one project. Buckley’s three-year example puts the trade-off plainly. Even if a major feature could eventually be made, it may consume time that could otherwise support a continued stream of smaller or less foundational work. Players asking for terrain excavation may be seeking a richer sandbox; other players may prefer the game to keep moving rather than wait years for that specific reinvention.

Neither preference is inherently unreasonable. The conflict comes when a request is treated as a quick toggle instead of a decision with broad technical consequences. Pocketpair is drawing a hard line precisely because the same requests keep resurfacing. Buckley’s wording leaves little room for ambiguity: terrain digging is not happening in the current game.

What Pocketpair has actually ruled out

The comments establish two particularly clear boundaries for Palworld as it exists now:

  • Terrain digging or deformation: Buckley says it would require landscape and pathfinding reworks on a years-long scale.
  • Underwater environments: He similarly describes these as a multi-year proposition rather than a realistic update request.

Those are not promises about a sequel, nor are they a timetable for one. The reference to Palworld 2 is a way of describing the scale of the requested work: features of this kind would be better suited to a project designed around them from the outset. Players should not read it as an announced sequel or a commitment that either system will appear in a future game.

That distinction is particularly valuable in a live-service-adjacent conversation, where a developer rejecting a request can easily become distorted into speculation about a roadmap. The only firm message here is narrower: Pocketpair considers those two ideas infeasible for the current game’s update path.

Palworld’s audience has not disappeared while the requests continue

The scale of the debate exists because Palworld has an engaged audience. Its 1.0 release reached just under one million concurrent players, a figure that underscores why its feature wish list is so expansive. A large community will contain many different definitions of what the game should become, from new activities to major revisions of the world itself.

There is also more content in the picture than the requests Buckley is rejecting: a dating sim is on the way. That contrast is instructive. A game can grow in unexpected directions without granting every technically expensive demand. The relevant measure is not whether an idea is imaginative, but whether it can be delivered without turning an update into a years-long rebuild.

For a broader look at the point when a game formally reaches 1.0, see Ratatan’s planned 1.0 launch and final-content update. The label can set expectations, but it does not eliminate the ongoing tension between what players request and what a development team can sustainably build.

The practical reading for players

Players hoping to dig through mountains or explore beneath the waves should treat Buckley’s remarks as a direct no for the current version of Palworld, rather than as a teaser to keep watching for the next patch. The stated obstacles are not cosmetic polish or a missing content drop; they are landscape and navigation systems that Pocketpair says would take years to rework.

That may be disappointing, but it is also more useful than a vague “we’ll consider it.” Clear boundaries allow players to calibrate expectations and focus feedback on ideas that could plausibly fit an ongoing game. For Pocketpair, the challenge is maintaining that candor without dismissing the enthusiasm behind the requests. Buckley’s comments show both sides of that balance: he sympathizes with why fans see the ideas as natural extensions, while insisting that natural does not mean feasible.

In short, Palworld players have not found a secret shortcut to the next big feature. They have found the edge of the current game’s foundations. Pocketpair’s answer is that crossing it would mean making a different game.