Palworld, the game from the Japanese peeps at Pocketpair, just dropped on early access for PC and Xbox last Friday. And guess what? It blew up big time, selling a whopping 2 million copies in just 24 hours, according to the creator.
At this very moment, there are nearly 850,000 folks in the game, putting it as the second most played game, right behind Counter-Strike 2. This peak player count is the 10th highest ever on Steam. To give you a comparison, Baldur’s Gate 3 holds the 9th spot with 875,343 players, and Hogwarts Legacy takes the 8th position with 879,308.
The huge number of players approaching the game server started causing connectivity issues. Replying to this issue, the devs of Palworld tweeted on X “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. We are working to resolve this ASAP!”
Again, on January 20, 2024, players started facing connection errors while trying to host a co-op. The devs again responded: “…a problem occurred in the Epic Games backend. We had an emergency meeting with the Epic Games team and had them add an update to the Epic Games backend at short notice. We have confirmed that this has resolved the connectivity errors and issues when hosting co-op games on Xbox and PC…”
Is Palworld the new ‘Pokemon with Gun’?
Now, here’s the thing – as soon as Palworld hit the scene, everyone started chatting about it, especially about how the characters look kinda like Pokémon. While Palworld might give off some serious Pokémon vibes at first glance, there’s more to it than meets the eye, and it’s not just about the firearms. To kick things off, survival is a big part of Palworld.
According to the Steam page, you’ll be dealing with “food shortages, harsh weather, and illegal poachers.” It seems like protecting your Pals from those poachers is a must, and as for the first two challenges, you better come prepared. The good news is, that the game lets you establish a home base and farm with your Pals to tough out the harsh conditions. Interestingly, if you’re up for it, there’s even an option to build a factory where your Pals can work, cranking out those guns that frequently make appearances in the trailers.
Even though the gameplay is more in line with survival games like Ark and Rust rather than the stuff Game Freak puts out, folks on social media can’t help but notice the clear nods to the Nintendo series in the character designs.
In the grand scheme of things, Palworld appears to be a peculiar yet remarkably robust game, sporting art that seems plucked right out of Pokémon but with a unique twist. Adding to the oddities, it’s set to feature online multiplayer—a long-awaited desire for Pokémon fans, a factor that initially fueled the success of games like TemTem. While Palworld may not hit the same heights, there are intriguing elements that might just breathe fresh life into the monster-catching genre.
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