When Palworld was revealed back in June 2021, most gamers had a similar reaction to it: “Oh, so this is Pokémon with guns.”
And, honestly? We weren’t totally wrong. But in the years since the game launched in early access back in January 2024, it’s become so much more than that—and Palworld’s devs at Pocketpair have the numbers to back it up.
Today, Pocketpair announced that Palworld crossed an incredible milestone of 40 million players worldwide across all platforms. It’s even more amazing to know that the game hit 19 million players in less than two weeks after launching, but it’s finally ready for its 1.0 launch tomorrow.
40 million players is nothing to scoff at, especially considering that the best-selling Pokémon game of all time is Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue on the GameBoy at just over 31 million copies sold. “Players” vs. “copies sold” is a different measurement indicator, but it’s still impressive, considering the game came from indie devs.
Nintendo had the same idea as gamers, suing Pocketpair for damages due to similarities in both franchises. A lot of those similarities have been tweaked in the years since the early access launch, and the latest reports indicate that the suit will amount to very little because of it. And Palworld continues trucking.
In the two-plus years since the game first dropped on Steam, it’s gotten a myriad of content updates and quality-of-life changes. And now, its biggest update yet, with the 1.0 launch, will transform it yet again. It seems like it will absolutely be worth revisiting if you’re anything like me, as someone who played the heck out of it in 2024 and haven’t really gone back since.
It’s also worth mentioning that Palworld will remain at its early access launch price of $29.99, which is very uncharacteristically fair when it comes to the price of gaming as a hobby in 2026, and I think that should be applauded as well.
Palworld 1.0 kicks off tomorrow with a slew of new Pals to befriend, story updates, new mechanics, and a whole lot more.
