There’s currently no way around the Pokémon clone Palworld. We took a look at the game for you and reveal why it’s breaking records
If you take a look at the Steam sales charts, you will probably have noticed that a game that was completely unknown to most gamers until a few days ago has taken first place in the current top-selling games.
The Pokémon clone Palworld is currently breaking all records and has already captivated millions of people just a few hours after its release. We took a look at the surprise hit and tell you what it’s all about.
This is what Palworld is all about
Palworld is an open-world action-adventure survival game with up to 32 players from the still relatively unknown Japanese developer studio (Pocket Pair).
Similar to Pokémon, in Palworld we control an avatar who uses the so-called “Pal Spheres” to capture creatures (“Pals”) on the island of Palpagos in order to have them fight for him afterwards.
There are currently 111 different Pals that differ in appearance and abilities. In addition to the Pals, some of which are quite obviously copied from Pokémon, but no less cute, we also have to take care of resources, pay attention to our hunger level and improve our base with the integrated crafting system.
Our loyal Pals are at our side for many tasks and help us with cooking, collecting raw materials or expanding our bases. There is also a research tree that unlocks new weapons, structures and decorations
If you don’t fancy the Pal hunt, you can simply buy them from a black market NPC trader or trade with other human players.
The weapon handling, animations and third-person view in Palworld are reminiscent of BR shooter Fortnite (both use the Unreal Engine), while the gameplay itself has often been described as Pokémon with guns in the past.
Our opponents include a crime syndicate, a Pal liberation movement and a police-like defense alliance. Over the course of the game, the different factions also provide the bosses that have to be defeated in large-scale battles
Record-breaking release
The release of Palworld could hardly have gone better. Shortly after the release of Early Access, an incredible one million players were playing simultaneously, catapulting Palworld to second place on the list of the most simultaneous players of a paid game (1st place: PUBG).
Our apologies, we were unaware that PUBG previously obtained the record before becoming a f2p game.
Again, our apologies for this misunderstanding. https://t.co/r1YeN2Bed5
– Palworld (@Palworld_EN) January 22, 2024
After just three days, the game has also sold over five million copies and has a fantastic 93 percent positive rating on Steam At times, the rush on the servers was so great that they had to capitulate for a short time and players were locked out.
With Palworld, Pocket Pair has easily managed to outperform triple-A titles such as Cyberpunkt 2077, Elden Ring or Hogwarts Legacy in terms of the number of simultaneous players without a large marketing budget.
Palworld has sold over 5 million copies in only 3 days!
Thank you soooo much!
In addition, thank you for all the illustrations on PalworldArt and videos on PalClips from all over the world!Please leave a review if you’ve been enjoying your time in Palworld!Pocketpair pic.twitter.com/wyq5HlNDHZ
– Palworld (@Palworld_EN) January 22, 2024
As things stand at the moment, Palworld will only be able to speak in superlatives for the next few days at least. Presumably the next milestone of six million copies sold will not be long in coming, driving player numbers on Steam even higher.
