In just six hours, Palworld – lovingly referred to as ‘Pokemon with guns’ – has beaten the Starfield Steam player count record, despite also launching on Game Pass. A survival, farming, and occasionally x-rated game, Palworld combines lovable animal and monster friends with considerably more adult ideas including weapons and violent combat. Developed by Pocketpair, this stark and sometimes disturbing blend of cute and shoot is evidently immensely popular, as Palworld jumps to the top of the Steam sales chart and rockets past Bethesda’s sweeping space RPG in terms of concurrent players.
If you want to jump into Pocketpair’s breakout hit, firstly, you’ll need the best Palword Pals. You should also check out our full Palworld early access review, which offers an intricate analysis of how giving AK-47s to Pokemon results in one of the most surprising survival games of recent years. With that in mind, the Palworld Steam player count is truly something to behold.
As of this writing, the game is less than eight hours old, having launched at precisely 12am PST / 3am EST / 8am GMT on Friday January 19. It’s taken Palworld even less than that time to surpass Bethesda’s Starfield in terms of concurrent Steam players, despite the fact that – like Starfield – Palworld is also out on Game Pass.
Starfield’s all-time concurrent player count record on Steam is precisely 330,723. Naturally, that doesn’t represent the entire audience for Bethesda’s successor to Skyrim and Fallout, since it launched on Game Pass day one. Palworld, however, has also launched on Game Pass day one, and currently already has a Steam concurrent player record of 370,128.
As a matter of fact, it took just six hours for Palworld to surpass Starfield’s Steam record, hitting 332,682 players at exactly 6am PST / 9am EST / 2pm GMT. Like Starfield, which was perhaps the most anticipated game of 2023, Palworld is sharing its audience between Valve’s store and Game Pass. Nevertheless, it has managed to get more players than the Bethesda space game in exactly one quarter of one day. That’s quite the achievement.
Palworld is also top of the Steam bestseller chart, and is already gaining notoriety owing to the appearance of one rather adult-themed Pal.
If you want to get involved with one of 2024’s most unusual games, you’ll need the best Palworld starters. Alternatively, learn how to level up fast in Palworld and get ahead of the pack.
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