Featured Image Credit: Pocketpair
Roughly two and a half years after its early access release, Palworld continues to take the video game industry by storm, recording over 40 million players globally since launch.
When Palworld first launched in January 2024 as an early access title, it was perhaps unfairly dubbed by the community “Pokémon with guns”. In many ways, that was a pretty accurate description, at least on the surface. However, players soon realised that this open-world multiplayer survival game is much more than that.
Players quickly appreciated Palworld’s sense of exploration in its large open world, capturing training, and even mounting its creatures. Also crafting impressive buildings, partaking in epic battles and much more.
Palworld is obviously inspired by Pokémon in terms of its creatures, but when it comes to its crafting elements and training of said creatures, it also took inspiration from the likes of Minecraft and Ark: Survival Evolved. Yet, despite its influences, the developers at Pocketpair made Palworld feel fresh, which is a big reason why players keep coming back for more.
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“Palworld passes 40 million players!” tweeted the official X (formerly Twitter) account. “Thank you all so much for your incredible support! Over the last 2.5 years, Palworld has grown alongside our community.”
The overnight success of Palworld and how it's continued to grow over the years is nothing short of impressive. This indie studio only had three to four members on its team when it first started. Since that time, according to an article from Polygon in January 2025, the team is said to have grown to around 35 to 40 members of staff, which is still quite small, especially when compared to major AAA studios.
Moreover, not only has it been a massive achievement by Pocketpair to grow Palworld into what it is today, but they’ve also had to contend with Nintendo lawsuits over alleged copyright infringement.
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This week, Palworld ended its early access phase, and while the game will still be supported by new content updates and fixes, the version of what we’re able to play today is likely very close to what the studio envisioned even before the release of the game in 2024.
“Pal Tamers, the time has come. Today, Palworld exits early access. Palworld 1.0 is here!” announced Pocketpair in a blog post. “Sunreach, a mysterious new island floating in the sky…The World Tree, the heart of the Palworld story…Palpagos has grown, and a new adventure awaits.”
“Palworld 1.0 adds 72 new Pals to the world, bringing the total number of Pals up to an incredible 287!” It continued.
“Palworld 1.0 also adds new ways to strengthen your Pals through Awakening and Mutation, rebalanced stats and abilities for all Pals, and large-scale overhauls across many aspects of the game, including base building, multiplayer, and graphics. The journey that began in Early Access reaches its climax, and from here, a new Palworld begins.”
Palworld 1.0 is available across all platforms and is included in Xbox Game Pass at no extra cost.
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