More Than 19 Million People Have Played Palworld On Xbox And PC

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<img loading="lazy" src="https://www.gameinformer.com/sites/default/files/styles/body_default/public/2024/01/22/518c662a/palworld_1.jpg" width="800" height="450" alt="Palworld Pokemon With Guns Survival Game Steam Millions Players Sales" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-body-default" /> Palworld first captured the attention of gamers (and their internet sphere) <a href="https://www.gameinformer.com/2021/06/07/what-would-a-dark-and-violent-pokemon-game-look-like-feast-your-eyes-on-palworld">when it was revealed back in 2021</a>. While that reveal included details about the survival aspects of the game, including multiplayer, crafting, and farming, viewers honed in on the idea of it being Pokémon but with guns. You can capture Pokémon-like monsters called Pals in special balls (and you can capture humans, too), but it's smart to shoot them or hack at them with an axe first to lower their health. And then, once under your command, you can give them their own guns to use, of course. Following various trailers since that 2021 reveal, <a href="https://www.gameinformer.com/2022/01/25/palworld-that-wacky-pokemon-style-survival-game-with-guns-gets-new-trailer">including this gameplay showcase</a> and <a href="https://www.gameinformer.com/2022/12/05/meet-the-gun-toting-monsters-of-palworld-in-new-trailer">this one highlighting the different Pals you can find</a>, we learned at Geoff Keighely's Summer Game Fest last year that <a href="https://www.gameinformer.com/sgf-2023/2023/06/08/palworld-catches-a-january-early-access-launch-date">Palworld would finally enter Early Access on PC via Steam and on Xbox in January of 2024</a>. Ahead of that launch, Game Informer <a href="https://www.gameinformer.com/2023/11/24/creature-feature-capturing-the-curious-story-of-palworld">spoke to developer Pocketpair about the game and internet speculation that it's fake</a>; and last week, we finally checked the game out for ourselves – <a href="https://www.gameinformer.com/gi-live/2024/01/19/trying-to-catch-them-all-in-palworld-game-informer-live">watch Game Informer's gameplay here</a>. While <a href="https://www.gameinformer.com/video-podcast/2024/01/18/palworld-is-real-and-so-is-the-last-of-us-part-ii-remastered-gi-show">we enjoyed playing the game's</a> first few hours, we never could have predicted how meteoric its first weekend would be. <img loading="lazy" src="https://www.gameinformer.com/sites/default/files/styles/body_default/public/2024/01/22/5e0172e8/palworld_ii.jpg" alt="Palworld Pokemon With Guns Survival Game Steam Millions Players Sales" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-body-default" /> If you haven't kept up, more than 5 million people purchased Palworld in its first 3 days on the market, with <a href="https://steamdb.info/app/1623730/charts/">an all-time peak of 1,581,679 players playing it concurrently on Steam</a> at the time of this writing (notably, this peak is different from the one I just saw moments ago, meaning even more players are continuing to pour in). That peak means Palworld has achieved the third-highest all-time peak in Steam history. It is safe to say Palworld is blowing past any and all expectations, and if you were on the internet at all this weekend, there's a good chance you read about its debut, controversy, and more. But if not, fear not – we've got you covered. <h2>What Is Palworld?</h2> <iframe width="560" height="315" frameBorder="0" allow="autoplay" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ls64Mio6OBQ" width="640"></iframe> If you aren't familiar , Palworld is a survival game from Pocketpair, an independent developer behind games like Craftopia and AI: Art Impostor (remember these names because they'll come up again later); Pocketpair is based in Japan, ironically 10 minutes away from The Pokémon Company, as noted by VideoGamesChronicle's Jordan Middler. <blockquote class="tw-align-center twitter-tweet"> PocketPair, the company behind Palworld, is located about 10 minutes drive from The Pokemon Company. Junichi Masuda is going to deliver the cease and desist by hand. <a href="https://t.co/IH6SNUae3G">pic.twitter.com/IH6SNUae3G</a> — Jordan Middler (@JordanMiddler) <a href="https://twitter.com/JordanMiddler/status/1748377025214132573?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2024</a></blockquote> While it's easy to call the game "Pokémon with guns," if you go in expecting that, you'll likely be disappointed. While there are Pokémon-like creatures called Pals that look and behave like Nintendo's famous pocket monsters, you aren't a trainer traversing the world to collect gym badges and take on an Elite Four. You are someone attempting to survive a harsh environment with the help of Pals, guns, and various melee weapons. You capture Pals similarly to how you might in a Pokémon game, utilizing a special ball to add them to your party and your Paldeck list. From there, you can use captured Pals to help you capture more or as workers in your home base factory, where they produce resources, automatically craft new things for your survival, and more. You can essentially enslave them, if you choose, although you don't have to. On PC, you can play with up to 31 other players on a single server; it only allows up to four total on Xbox. You can fight raid-like bosses together, build a base with friends, and encounter various NPCs in the world. In these ways and more, Palworld is more like Valheim than it is Pokémon, but it's clear the "Pokémon with guns" pitch is what's initially drawing players in. <h2>Palworld's Meteoric Launch</h2> <img loading="lazy" src="https://www.gameinformer.com/sites/default/files/styles/body_default/public/2023/11/21/b3f6f845/palworld07.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" alt="" class="image-style-body-default" /> Palworld officially hit Early Access last week on Thursday, January 18. It quickly <a href="https://x.com/Palworld_EN/status/1748185462710390795?s=20">ranked third on Steam in its Top Wishlists</a>, which often provides insight into how a game might sell. Within just eight hours of launching, Palworld crossed 1 million copies sold, <a href="https://x.com/Palworld_EN/status/1748378179134427304?s=20">according to the game's official Twitter account</a>. The Palworld servers were quickly over-encumbered by so many players, leading to issues for people trying to play the game. "We are blown away with the response to Palworld and we're doing our best to respond to your issues," the Palworld Twitter account tweeted on January 19. "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." <blockquote class="tw-align-center twitter-tweet"> Hello everyone, 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… — Palworld (@Palworld_EN) <a href="https://twitter.com/Palworld_EN/status/1748352597009035497?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2024</a></blockquote> <a href="https://x.com/Palworld_EN/status/1748618579757711617?s=20">Palworld crossed 2 million copies sold in just 24 hours</a>, on January 20, surpassing 730,000 concurrent players on Steam, <a href="https://x.com/Palworld_EN/status/1748697196885848564?s=20">achieving the 10th highest all-time peak in doing so</a>. Palworld then hit another achievement just 16 hours later: <a href="https://x.com/Palworld_EN/status/1748871267439247623?s=20">3 million copies sold in 40 hours</a>. Server issues continued, but Pocketpair announced on January 20 <a href="https://x.com/Palworld_EN/status/1748633117454450872?s=20">it had an emergency meeting with Epic Games</a> and its Epic Online Services team to resolve connectivity issues. The hype surrounding Palworld continued through the weekend, <a href="https://x.com/Palworld_EN/status/1749074821609373745?s=20">selling 4 million copies in just three days</a>. Pocketpair incorrectly announced on January 21 that Palworld achieved the highest concurrent player count of any paid game in the history of Steam, but internet sleuths were quick to point out that <a href="https://www.gameinformer.com/product/pubg-battlegrounds">PUBG</a> set this record in 2018 with 3.2 million players. In 2018, PUBG was a paid game – it went free-to-play in 2022, something Pocketpair says it was unaware of at the time of its post, which is why it thought it achieved said record. <blockquote class="tw-align-center twitter-tweet"> Our apologies, we were unaware that PUBG previously obtained the record before becoming a f2p game. Again, our apologies for this misunderstanding.

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Wesley LeBlanc

More Than 19 Million People Have Played Palworld On Xbox And PC

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