Palworld developer Pocketpair has announced the ‘Pokémon with guns’ crafting and survival game has seen over 25 million players since going on sale last month.
Pocketpair said the Steam version has sold an incredible 15 million copies, whereas on Xbox it’s seen 10 million players.
There’s one good reason why the Steam version is perhaps more popular than the Xbox version: Palworld on Xbox doesn’t have dedicated servers. On Steam, Palworld players can create and join dedicated servers that enable up to 32 players to play in the same world and create guilds together. But on Xbox and Windows PC (so, everyone playing on Game Pass), Palworld players cannot create or join dedicated servers, which means online co-op is limited to two to four players. Crossplay between Xbox and Steam is currently unavailable.
Pocketpair has said it’s working to achieve parity across the Xbox and Steam versions, and indeed Microsoft is working closely with Pocketpair to enable faster updates.
Palworld's explosive launch, which saw it break a number of Steam concurrent players records, has cooled somewhat. Last week, Pocketpair commented on the debate around the declining number of players, calling the discourse "lazy". While the concurrent player count on Steam has fallen steadily since the peak, it’s worth pointing out Palworld remains one of the most-played games on Valve’s platform.
Last month, Pocketpair said Palworld will get PvP, raid bosses, and new islands in future updates, but it has targeted critical issues first. Crossplay between Steam and Xbox is also in the works (presumably this will up the co-op player count on Xbox at the same time), as well as improvements to the building system.
While Palworld is one of the biggest game launches ever, it’s also one of the most controversial. Pocketpair has said its staff have received death threats amid Pokémon "rip-off" claims, which it has denied. Soon after launch, Nintendo moved quickly to remove an eye-catching Pokémon mod, then The Pokemon Company issued a statement, saying: "We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to Pokémon." IGN asked lawyers whether Nintendo could successfully sue.
If you're playing, be sure to check out IGN's interactive Palworld map.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
