19 million copies of the satirical “Pokémon with firearms” have been sold since its January 19 Early Access release.
Palworld, the “Pokémon with guns” game that went viral and was released in Early Access to mixed reviews, has already sold 19 million downloads after its initial release. Since its introduction on January 19, the developer Pocketpair claims that it has sold twelve million downloads on Steam and seven million copies on Xbox. This is after selling more than one million copies in its first eight hours of availability. It has been stated by Microsoft that the tongue-in-cheek Pokémon spoof is the most significant third-party debut on Game Pass.
“The response from fans has been tremendous, and it is incredible to see the millions of players around the world enjoying Palworld,” said Takuro Mizobe, CEO of Pocketpair, in an interview with Xbox Wire. “This is just the beginning for both Palworld and us, and the feedback that we are gathering while we are in Game Preview will enable us to continue to improve the experience that Pal Tamers have across all platforms,”
In addition to being the greatest third-party Game Pass launch ever, Palworld also had the largest day-one launch of any third-party game on Xbox Cloud Gaming (which is included with Game Pass Ultimate). From the time it was first released, the game reached its highest peak of approximately three million daily active users on Xbox. According to Microsoft, it was the game that users played the most on Xbox platforms during that time period.
Palworld makes use of characters and ideas that are similar to Pokémon, which is sufficient to attract the notice of Nintendo’s legal team. It features combat with monsters that are comparable to those seen in the series of creatures that collectors gather, including the opportunity to capture them inside a sphere after they have been defeated.
Palworld, on the other hand, features incisive social criticism and integrates issues that are not present in Pokémon, such as the exploitation of labor. According to a frequently asked questions section of the game, “Don’t worry, there are no labor laws for Pals.” It was seen in one of the trailers for the game that a player was using an assault rifle to hunt down and kill hard-working Pals. The voiceover states that the key to leading a pleasant existence in Palworld is to establish a productive base such as this one.
Microsoft has insisted that the developer is continuing to put in a lot of effort to complete the Early Access title. Xbox Wire’s Joe Skrebels said that “there is much more to come as Pocketpair refine the experience ahead of a full 1.0 release.” Pocketpair is currently under development. According to him, Pocketpair is taking everything they’ve learned from player feedback and putting it into practice. He went on to say that cross-play, which is one of the things that has been desired the most, will soon be available.
🎉Total number of players exceeds 19 million🎉
— Palworld (@Palworld_EN) January 31, 2024
It's been less than two weeks since #Palworld was released, thank you!
・Steam: 12 million~ copies
・Xbox: 7 million~ players
We will continue to prioritize fixing bugs!
Thank you for your continued support of #Pocketpair! pic.twitter.com/twgAeYVL07
Even if initial impressions of the game’s enjoyment and polish are, at best, inconsistent, having Microsoft on the developer’s side might be of great assistance in bringing Palworld to a substantially higher level of satisfaction. It has been said by the company that makes Windows that it is providing support for the game by enabling dedicated servers and providing engineering resources to assist in optimizing the workload on the GPU and memory. A post was made on X by Palworld stating that it will “continue to prioritize fixing bugs.”
On both Xbox and PC (including Steam), Palworld is available in Early Access for a fee of thirty dollars (and is included in Game Pass services).