Palworld is Ripping Through Steam Charts with a Record-breaking Weekend Launch

Palworld, the Fortnite-esque Pokémon shooter, was released ahead of the weekend, and the response was utterly surprising, to say the least. The game sold over 2 million copies on launch day and managed to crash the Steam servers with excessive traffic.

In addition to being available on Steam, the game was also released on Xbox One and Series X/S, and it was accessible on Game Pass on launch day. The game marked the biggest launch on Steam this year and is now the top-selling game on the platform, at the moment.

The response was so surprising that not only did Steam struggle to manage the traffic, but the game even crashed Epic Games’ servers. On Saturday, Palworld developer Pocket Pair posted that the game had issues when attempting to host co-op because the Epic servers experienced problems on the backend.

Palworld Becomes the 10th Most Played Game on Steam With Over 850,000 Concurrent Players

On Steam, the game reached over 850,000 concurrent players within a day of launch! To provide some context for what this number represents, Palworld has now become the 10th most played game of ALL TIME on Steam, and this is excluding console players.

The Dark Nature & Pokémon Plagiarism Controversy

With a game that sells well and is aimed at an audience that loves both Pokémon and Fortnite, you would think it resembles its nature. However, that is not the case. In this open-world survival and crafting game, you get to fight hundreds of different Pokémon, or Pals as they are known in the game, and even have the ability to enslave them. You can use them to fight others, or if you feel they are unwanted, you can cleverly kill them or even eat them.

The game oddly resembles the concept of Pokémon, from the design of characters to the method of encapsulating them into a sphere during battles. The issue is further accentuated by Pocketpair’s history with genAI tools, leading many to believe that several elements were directly copied from Pokémon.

Despite its controversial premise, Palworld has received good reviews. It’s in early access, so the developers will likely make improvements in the coming months. You can buy it on Steam for $27 during the launch period, and it’s also available on Game Pass for Xbox. Just…. be aware of the dark and gritty elements in the game before you decide to buy a copy.

This is all we know for now, but rest assured that we will keep you updated as new information becomes available .