UPDATE: just a day after I posted this original story, Palworld has broken its own record, having hit as peak concurrent player count of 855,706. It has also managed to sell a mind-boggling 2 million copies.
ORIGINAL STORY: Palworld, better known to the Internet as Pokemon with guns, launched into Early Access today and the response has been staggering, indicating that people either really want a Pokemon game that isn’t tied to Nintendo’s console, or that being able to catch and sell human beings is still something we want to do.
Within just hours of launching Palworld managed to hit a peak concurrent player count on Steam of 370,128, catapulting it to the top of the trending game list. It has also launched on Game Pass, but we don’t know the player count over there.
What we do know is that Palworld is so popular that it’s causing a few server issues. The developers, Pocketpairs, had to issue a statement via X, saying, “We are blown away with the response to Palworld and we’re doing our best to respond to your issues! Currently, our server provider is reporting that due to the large amount of concurrent players, the servers have become unstable and you may be experiencing issues connecting to servers.”
What a problem to have, eh? Oh, and did I mention it has already sold a million copies? Well, according to Pocketpair it managed exactly that.
People really seem to be loving it, too. There are already just under 3,000 reviews on Steam giving the game a “very positive” rating, although since it only just released it’s probably too early to draw solid conclusions. Still, the early signs are good.
“Thats the cutest Enslaving and Genocide Simulator i have ever played.” wrote Soldner 42. That should be slapped straight onto the store page, I reckon.
Palworld promises a lot. It’s built around the idea of using “Pals” to survive in its world, including apparently even eating your own Pals if needed. Players can build structures, run farms, use Pals as physical labour to generate power and even create factories where Pals will work forever, or until they die. It’s even possible to go poaching by sneaking into reserves to capture some of the rarest Pals.
There’s even multiplayer, too, with dedicated servers allowing up to 32 people to hang out together. Plus, PvP is promised for the future.
Honestly, writing all that out makes me think Palworld is some sort of fever dream going on inside a Pokemon fans mind as they try to fight off an infection. But it’s one hell of an appealing fever dream, which is why I’m downloading it right now.
