Palworld has been in Early Access on Xbox and Steam since Friday. Since then, it has been surpassing its own player records almost hourly. The survival game is now bigger than some of the best releases of the past few years. MeinMMO has taken a look at how successful Palworld is.
Update 12:35 – The original version of the article stated that Palworld was in 2nd place among the most played paid titles after Cyberpunk 2077. Palworld has just broken the mark of 1,060,000 concurrent players, so we have adjusted the article accordingly.
What is Palworld? This is probably something that hardly needs explaining at this point. The unusual survival game has been in Early Access since January 19, 2024, and has been on a seemingly unstoppable winning streak ever since.
If, despite all the hype, you haven’t heard anything about the game yet, we have summarized the most important information for you. Although Palworld has only been released in Early Access, it has already broken several records. Learn how successful “Pokémon with guns” is here.
Palworld is bigger than Baldur’s Gate 3 and Elden Ring
What records are these? These achievements are all tied to a magical number that Palworld broke on the morning of January 21, 2024, our time: the mark of 1 million concurrent players. This catapults the survival game to 6th place among the games with the highest player records on Steam (via SteamDB).
Specifically, this means:
- Palworld has broken the player records of Baldur’s Gate 3, New World, and even Elden Ring – 3 of the biggest releases in recent years.
- The survival title from developer Pocketpair is also the Japanese game with the most concurrent players of all time on Steam, as the studio itself shared on X.
- In the most played games on Steam, free titles usually dominate. On January 21, 2024, Palworld surpassed Cyberpunk 2077, making it the paid game with the most concurrent players on Steam.
How is Palworld doing otherwise? Besides these specific achievements, Palworld is currently doing exceedingly well. It sold 1 million copies within 8 hours after launch and reached the mark of 3 million sales within 40 hours (via X).
On Steam, it is currently the best-selling game, ahead of the free enduring classic Counter-Strike. Unfortunately, such numbers are not available for Xbox, but it is expected that many players are taking advantage of the Game Pass offer and playing Palworld for free there.
However, not everyone is happy with Palworld’s success. Some Pokémon fans complain that it has borrowed too much from Nintendo’s popular creature collector. However, that doesn’t seem to detract from the overall mood, as the survival game currently has a 93% positive rating on Steam.
Is your finger hovering over the buy button for hours? Are you unsure if Palworld might appeal to you as a Pokémon fan? MeinMMO editor Dariusz has already spent some hours in the game and documented his experiences here: Palworld played: The new survival game is great because it combines some of the best games
