Palworld’s incredible success continued to grow over the weekend as the survival and crafting game known as “Pokémon with guns” soared up Steam’s most-played list and sold millions more copies.
Palworld debuted on January 19, day-and-date with Game Pass, in early access for Steam, Xbox, and Windows PC. With 1,291,967 players online at once on Valve’s platform, Palworld surpassed CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077 to establish the fifth-highest peak concurrent player count on Steam. Palworld is currently the most played game on Steam, surpassing the likes of PUBG, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike 2. On Steam, it is only the sixth game in history to reach one million concurrent users.
This triumph on Steam is accompanied by other Steam records. Palworld has surpassed Elden Ring to become the most played Japanese-developed game on Steam to date. PocketPair, the game’s developer, is located in Tokyo. Palworld is the second most played paid game on Steam history, trailing only PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) at its possibly unbeatable high concurrent number of 3,257,248—a record established prior to the battle royale’s free-to-play launch.
Palworld sold over five million copies in just three days, according to Pocketpair, with 86,000 copies moving every hour. For comparison, the first three days of sales for Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man, Sony Santa Monica Studio’s God of War, and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us 2 saw sales of 3.3 million, 3.1 million, and 4 million copies, respectively. In a three-day sales window, Palworld has therefore sold more than any previous fastest-selling first-party PS4 exclusive. All this, even though Game Pass has had it available since day one.
Palworld is undoubtedly a huge success, but it is not without criticism. IGN published a story last week about how some Pokémon enthusiasts were using social media to draw attention to the startling parallels between Palworld’s Pals and the actual Pokémon. In other areas, major features and upgrades for the Xbox version are still behind those of the Steam version. Palworld’s servers have experienced difficulties since its massive launch.