Palworld’s monstrously successful launch has reached another milestone, with developer Pocketpair announcing that it has hit more than 19 million total players since launching less than two weeks ago.
The team shared the news on its official X/Twitter account, breaking down the numbers as it promises to prioritize bug fixes. On Steam, where the Pokémon-like experience costs $29.99, Palworld has managed to capture a whopping 12 million players. The other 7 million players come from Xbox, where the project found enormous success on Xbox Game Pass.
🎉Total number of players exceeds 19 million🎉
It’s been less than two weeks since #Palworld was released, thank you!
・Steam: 12 million~ copies
・Xbox: 7 million~ playersWe will continue to prioritize fixing bugs!
Thank you for your continued support of #Pocketpair! pic.twitter.com/twgAeYVL07— Palworld (@Palworld_EN) January 31, 2024
Microsoft provided its own statement regarding this latest achievement via Xbox Wire, proclaiming that Palworld now holds the title of the biggest third-party Game Pass launch in history. The Pocketpair project is also the most-played third-party day-one release through Xbox Cloud Gaming on Game Pass Ultimate. Its highest player peak on Xbox reached 3 million players recently.
“The response from fans has been tremendous and it’s incredible to see the millions of players around the world enjoying Palworld,” Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe said. “This is just the beginning for us and Palworld, and the feedback we’re gathering while in Game Preview will allow us to continue to improve the experience for Pal Tamers across all platforms.”
The Xbox Wire post goes on to say that the developers are working on addressing the need for cross-play as they move steadily toward an eventual 1.0 release. Meanwhile, Xbox itself is looking to offer support for Pocketpair to ensure Palworld continues to grow.
“On Xbox’s part, we’re working with Pocketpair to help provide support for Xbox versions of the game,” the blog post reads. “We’re providing support to enable dedicated servers, offering engineering resources to help with GPU and memory optimization, speeding up the process to make Palworld updates available for players, and working with the team to optimize the title for our platform.”
Palworld is moving in fast on that 20 million players milestone, but its strong launch has not been without its issues. As numbers have climbed since the January 19 Early Access launch, fans have taken to social media to post accusations of plagiarism, saying that some creatures bear suspicious resemblance to monsters found in the Pokémon games. The Pokémon Company has since responded to the claims, saying that it intends “to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon.”
Pocketpair is dealing with other snags, too, including fake Palworld mobile games that have recently started to appear. There’s also the issue of cheating players, who have only increased in numbers as growth continues.
In our Palworld Steam review, we praised its “deep survival mechanics and a hilarious attitude” despite its abundantly clear influences. The project will only continue to change at Pocketpair works toward 1.0.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
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