Palworld is the biggest third-party Xbox Game Pass launch ever, with over 7 million players on Xbox so far
Pocketpair’s Palworld continues blowing up, becoming the biggest-ever third-party Xbox Game Pass launch.
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What you need to know
One month into 2024, Pals with guns are extremely popular.
Pocketpair’s early access survival gamePalworldis now the biggest third-partyXbox Game Passlaunch of all time, as shared byXbox Wireon Wednesday. Palworld has been played by 7 million players across the Xbox ecosystem, which includes Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles, as well as PC Game Pass. Palworld also reached daily peaks of almost 3 million players on Xbox, being the most-played game in the ecosystem at that time.
“The response from fans has been tremendous and it’s incredible to see the millions of players around the world enjoying Palworld. This is just the beginning for us and Palworld, and the feedback we’re gathering while in Game Preview will allow us to continue to improve the experience for Pal Tamers across all platforms,” says Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe.
This also means that Palworld hasdisplaced Squanch Games' first-person shooter High on Life, the previous record holder for the biggest third-party Xbox Game Pass launch. While a number was not given at the time, we’re told that High on Life had “millions” of players on Xbox as of Dec. 20, 2022.
Palworld is a huge hit, with a roadmap of updates
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Outside of Xbox Game Pass, Palworld has sold over 12 million copies on Steam, further cementing it as one of the biggest hits of 2024 so far. The year is young, but developer and publisherPocketpair shared a roadmap of updatesand new features that the team is working on, including a large number of bug fixes, raid bosses, and cross-play support.“On Xbox’s part, we’re working with Pocketpair to help provide support for Xbox versions of the game,” writes Joe Skrebels, editor-in-chief of Xbox Wire. “We’re providing support to enable dedicated servers, offering engineering resources to help with GPU and memory optimization, speeding up the process to makePalworldupdates available for players, and working with the team to optimize the title for our platform.”
Analysis: Huge momentum, and support will be key
It’s safe to say the immediate success of Palworld is locked in, and the team at Pocketpair has a mountain of potential in front of them. The question will be how regularly the team can update this game, addressing key areas of feedback such as the plentiful bugs and features like cross-play or dedicated servers.
Some sales analyst friends of mine believe that Palworld has a shot at being the best-selling game of the year. While nothing is ever truly certain, this news definitely reinforces Pocketpair’s chances of attaining that feat for 2024.
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Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Twitter@SamuelTolbert.
