Palworld, better known as Pokémon but with guns, has had an utterly massive launch, with developer Pocket Pair, Inc. announcing the game sold a whopping 1 million copies in just eight hours.
In addition to these sales figures, Palworld is currently the third most-played game on Steam, with over 370,000 concurrent players at the time of writing. It’s also the most popular game on Twitch, with over 320,000 viewers. It’ll be interesting to see how long this viewership lasts, but it does mean that more people are currently watching Palworld than GTA 5, Fortnite, Counter Strike 2 and more.
All of these numbers don’t even include that the game launched for free on Xbox Game Pass as well, which means the number of players is likely even higher than we know.
The game is currently in Early Access and has garnered a ton of attention since its reveal trailer was featured at Summer Games Fest 2023. It turns out people are chomping at the bit for a more adult-oriented Pokémon that lets you shoot the cuddly creatures.
Pokémon with guns is simplifying Palword’s formula a bit. Monster-catching is a huge part of it, but the game also loops in quite a few features found in many of the most popular co-op games. Players can build structures and farms to produce materials, put their Pals to work in a factory, explore dungeons, poach Pals from wildlife sanctuaries, and more. Palworld also features co-op for up to 4 players, and on PC, dedicated servers can even have 32 players on at once.
The overwhelming response has, understandably, put a massive strain on the game’s servers. A post on Palworld’s official X account reads, “Currently, our server provider is reporting that due to a large number of concurrent players, the servers have become unstable, and you may be experiencing issues connecting to servers. We are working to resolve this ASAP! In the meantime, some users have reported success in attempting to connect 2-3 times or waiting after launching the game.”
Palworld is available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. There’s currently no word on a PlayStation version.
