Palworld made national headlines as a little-known studio held the number 1 spot for Steam concurrent players – above many established triple A games – and remains 2nd for all-time peak players behind PUBG Battlegrounds. Since the peak a few weeks ago, Palworld has fallen. Is that the end?
No.
Palworld is in early access and is therefore not complete. Similar games can expect a year to even three of remaining in the early access stage before a “final” release. Prison Architect, Baldur’s Gate 3, and even PUBG, all enjoyed their time in the early-access program. To expect 200 hours of gameplay on an initial release of this program is unrealistic, especially when you can still get 40-50 hours of fun from Palworld in the current state.
Bugs are common and changes are expected to break features, it’s the nature of the beast! Pocketpair seem to have done a good job at reaching an incredible level of notoriety and keeping on a path of transparency with their community. Bug fixes are being pushed out and the studio is not in the position to try and rush pushing out new content for the sake of staying relevant. It’s honestly pretty refreshing to see this today and my hope is that this continues well into the future with an IP as ripe for expansion as Palworld is.
You can expect a proper review of Palworld once it has been published in a final form. Until then, enjoy the ride.
