I'm like 99.9999% sure that craftopia was an initial attempt at something similar to palworld, it has all the catching mechanics, the skills the pets use, the crafting machines, and their last major update was to add a "seamless" open world. I think they eventually decided that they'd be better served to jump from unity to unreal and just make a whole new game instead of improving craftopia.

I just wish they were more honest about it. I think they're still afraid to call it what it was and so they are pretending to care about craftopias future.