If you and I were talking about video games six months ago and you told that the "Pokémon with guns" game would have taken over the gaming space, I would have laughed and quickly dismissed it. We've seen Pokémon clones come through this space before, but none of them have hit the scene as hard as Pokémon.
Palworld, developed by Pocket Pair, has been tweeting out some incredibly impressive numbers and it seems that even "controversies" surrounding both the creation and the content of the game, can't slow down this freight train.
Palworld's Twitter account sent this tweet out yesterday:
In case the tweet isn't loading, Palworld is boasting that since their launch they've sold 12 MILLION units on Steam and have had 7 MILLION players through Xbox Game Pass. That is a crazy number of people playing a game that no one thought would have done anything big when it hit the shelves.
People in gaming spaces have been asking a question that plagues every game: "Does it have lasting power?"
While that is a difficult question to answer, Palworld's Steam Charts may be a good indication of this game's staying power. As 12pm EST on February 1st, Palworld has 1,025,652 people playing it. Within the last 24 hours, 1.32 MILLION people logged into Steam to play it.
Again, that is a consistent one million+ base playing it just on steam. Looking at their 30 day average (or more realistically, a two week sample) for January, Palworld had an average player count of 1.14 million steam users logging in and putting their pals to work.
Pocket Pair has already announced a roadmap for Palworld which includes a PVP mode, a pal arena PVP mode and raid bosses. Dates have not been announced, but given the amount of support from both platforms, it would shock me if Pocket Pair came out and said they were unable to deliver on their promises due to financial reasons.
Palworld always have their detractors. On the face of it, this game looks like a Pokémon clone while other monster pocket type games have done their best to shy away from those criticisms. There is something to be said about Palworld having the second highest peak player total EVER on Steam, beating out games like DOTA 2, Counter-Strike 2 and Elden Ring.
Will this game be around in a year or two? It's hard to say, but with a dedicated (and quite large) player base and the backing of Xbox, I would expect Palworld to be a big player in the pocket monster genre.
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