After drawing in over two million players at launch, Palworld lost over 84 percent of its playerbase in its first month. With the release of the game’s new Sakurajima update, however, fans are flocking back to the open-world creature collector, eager to explore Palworld‘s new island. The massive update also brings with it the highly-anticipated PvP multiplayer Arena, new Pals and Pal skills, a new raid, new construction options, new items, and much more.
Palworld has seen a 700% increase in concurrent players on Steam since the new update. Prior to the Sakurajima update, the game was sitting at around 15,000 players a day, with the most recent surge boosting that number to almost 144,000. Just after its release in January, the ‘Pokemon with guns’ title brought in a ridiculous 2,101,867 players concurrently.
“Put simply, Palworld is an open-world, survival craft game with the added element of monster-taming/collection,” said PocketPair CEO Takuro Mizobe in a January interview. “It also takes significant inspiration from real-time strategy and automation games – you build bases, and your Pals work autonomously to support you. I think that these mechanics are quite rare in 3D games.”
The title has come under fire for similarities to the Pokemon series, though Nintendo has not pursued legal action against the indie developer.
“Pokemon first appeared when I was still a grade schooler, and it was like a social phenomenon. I adore the series too, and recent releases such as Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, as well as the open-world title Pokemon Legends: Arceus, have left a deep impression on me,” Mizobe said.
“The concept for our Palworld originated from the thought, “Would it be possible to add monster collecting elements to the open-world survival craft genre?” And, although we did reference the Pokemon series as a great predecessor of its genre, Palworld feels completely different as a game, which I think people will realize as soon as they play it. I would even say that Palworld is a lot more similar to ARK: Survival Evolved in terms of game mechanics.”
Palworld was released in early access in January 2024 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. As of February 2024, the game had sold over 15 million copies.
