Update: Since Palworld’s launch, the title has currently sold over 7 million copies on Steam alone. This doesn’t include sales on Xbox and Windows PC (or Game Pass). While these figures are massively impressive, it’s worth noting that it translates into about $189 million USD in Steam sales in only 5 days.
Palworld has sold over one million copies in eight hours after launch, according to developer Pocketpair.
The controversial, thinnly-veiled “Pokémon with guns” is a multiplayer, open-world, survival crafting game that allows players to collect and befriend creatures (called Pals). Pals can fight, build, farm, and work in factories.
Launching on January 19, Palworld darted up to the top of Steam’s best-selling games, overtaking titles like PUBG with over 360,000 concurrent players. With the game also available on Xbox and PC via Game Pass, the number of concurrent players is sure to be higher.
Palworld is… interesting, to put it bluntly. On one hand, it looks like the developers stole Pokémon’s homework and just changed it up a little bit, but once you get past the *ahem* similarities between Palworld and Pokémon, the game itself becomes almost unhinged.
Survival is the goal, and you not only have to live through harsh conditions, but you’ll have to fight off other Pal trainers. With guns. Reviews of Palword are also interesting. Travis Northup from IGN wrote, “One moment I was taking in pastoral views as I explored for new Pals, gliding, climbing, crafting, and cooking like this was an off-brand Tears of the Kingdom. The next moment I was firing guns at armed thugs and considering the possibility of butchering a Pal who had been mentally broken by the poor working conditions of my sweatshop so I could consume his meat to avoid starvation.”
As of now, Palworld isn’t a game on my radar, and I’m curious to see how the post-launch numbers change, but it’s obvious that people are still hungry for more collectible, furry creatures… sometimes literally.
Palworld is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Windows PC. Have you been playing? What are your thoughts?