When Palworld was first announced in June 2021, it was treated like nothing more than a meme because gamers thought it was simply ripping off Pokémon while adding guns and animal cruelty. Once Palworld launched, though, it dominated Steam with an absurd player count.
While it only launched into early access on Jan. 19, Palworld’s mix of Pokémon-like elements paired with comical freedom and staple, modern gameplay features has hundreds of thousands of players hooked. With more content on the horizon, these numbers will likely only grow over time.
How many people are playing Palworld? Palworld active player count
As of Jan. 28, Palworld peaked at an all-time user count of 2,101,535 on Steam, according to Steam Charts. That put the game at the top of the platform’s most-played games by concurrent player count over heavy hitters like Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and PUBG.
Since then, Palword’s player count has significantly dropped. As of Feb. 23, its average player count of the last 30 days was roughly 707,892, and its current player count is 217,180, bringing it down Steam’s most-played games list by several spots. While the likes of Counter-Strike 2 and PUBG have reclaimed the top spots, Palworld is still sitting in the top five ahead of the likes of Naraka: Bladepoint and even Helldivers 2, despite the latter being new and proving massively popular.
Just three days after its launch, Palworld reached 1.19 million players and jumped into the Steam history books, overtaking Baldur’s Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, New World, Elden Ring, and Cyberpunk 2077 to become the platform’s fourth most-played game of all time by peak player count. With Palworld fever slowing down, though, it’s not going to catch up to PUBG’s peak player count record of 3,257,248 any time soon.
It’s perfectly natural for Palworld’s player count to drop. After all, it has been out for over a month, so people are going to drift away as newer games release. Some players will also have dropped off because they realized Palworld simply wasn’t for them, or they’ve seen everything there is. While there’s no shortage of things to do in Palworld, dedicated players will eventually find themselves completing the Paldeck and defeating all the Tower bosses.
But Palworld is an early access title and is set to receive multiple updates ahead of its full release. Depending on what’s added, such as highly requested features like PVP battles, the player count could rocket back up, so it’s too early to call Palworld a short-lived fad.
The developers at Pocketpair noted that Palworld appeared to have the most concurrent players of any Japanese release or paid game ever on Steam during its launch period. These numbers also didn’t take into account all the players enjoying Palworld in early access on Xbox, where it’s free to download on Xbox Game Pass. Palworld is also available on Xbox Game Pass for PC, though the version on those platforms isn’t exactly the same as the Steam version.
How many copies has Palworld sold?
As of Feb. 22, Pocketpair has officially confirmed that Palworld has sold more than 15 million copies on Steam. This data doesn’t include Xbox sales or Game Pass downloads, but Pocketpair did say the Xbox version attracted at least 10 million players, bringing the total player count to at least 25 million. For the record, Pokémon Scarlet & Violet have sold at least 24.36 million copies, meaning Palworld may just be a legitimate rival to Nintendo’s long-running franchise after all.
That number could easily rise once the full game launches, especially if it ever comes to PlayStation and/or Nintendo Switch. Just make sure to keep an eye on the Palworld server status if you ever find yourself tempted to see what the fuss is all about.
