Palworld’s astonishing success swelled over the weekend, with the ‘Pokémon with guns’ survival and crafting game shooting up Steam’s most-played games list and selling millions more copies.
Palworld launched on January 19 in early access form on Steam as well as on Xbox and Windows PC, day-and-date with Game Pass. Palworld overtook CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077 to set Steam’s fifth highest peak concurrent player count with 1,291,967 online at the same time on Valve’s platform. Palworld is currently the most-played game on Steam, ahead of behemoths Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and PUBG. It is just the sixth game ever to hit one million concurrents on Steam.
There are a number of Steam records that go along with this success on Steam. Palworld is now the most-played Japanese-developed game ever on Steam (its developer, PocketPair, is based in Tokyo), ahead of previous record holder, Elden Ring. And Palworld is the second most-played paid game ever on Steam, behind PUBG’s perhaps insurmountable peak concurrent figure of 3,257,248, which was set before the battle royale went free-to-play.
Meanwhile, Pocketpair said Palworld had sold over five million in about three days, with 86,000 copies selling per hour. For context, Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man sold 3.3 million copies in its first three days on sale, Sony Santa Monica Studio’s God of War sold 3.1 million in three days, and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us 2 sold 4 million in the same time period. Palworld, then, has sold faster than the fastest-selling first-party PS4 exclusive ever in a three-day sales window.
While Palworld is a clear smash hit, it is not without controversy. Last week IGN reported on how some Pokémon fans were taking to social media to point out striking similarities between Palworld’s Pals and the Pokémon themselves. Elsewhere, the Xbox version continues to lag behind the Steam version in terms of key features and updates. Palworld’s enormous launch has seen its servers struggle, too.
Check out IGN’s Palworld Early Access Review in Progress to find out what we thought.
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.
