What they did was, whether intentionally or accidentally, capitalize on dissatisfaction with the stagnation of a genre. If Pokemon Legends: Arceus had been the Pokemon + Breath of the Wild game a lot of folks hoped it would be, Game Freak could have capitalized on that instead, but it wasn’t, they didn’t, and here we are. Palworld also had the force of an internet meme marketing the game for them, which IMO was a huge factor in its success.