Palworld, one the newest and fastest growing games on Steam, has become the second most played game in Steam history. 

Palworld, which was released on January 19, 2024, on the Steam store, is a third-person action-adventure and survival game with the added element of monster-taming/collection, where players explore an open world filled with creatures that the player can fight or capture.

Initially dubbed as “Pokémon with guns,” Palworld has evolved into much more than a simple meme, offering players an experience that defies the typical boundaries of its genre.

People comparing Palworld to Pokémon is inevitable, especially given the game’s premise of collecting and battling creatures. However, unlike Pokémon, Palworld makes itself unique by having an action-focused approach to gameplay, which makes players feel like they are participating in battles rather than just spectating a fight between creatures.

At the beginning of the game, players are thrust into a tutorial that explains the endless activities that they can partake in, from catching pals to building complex bases. Once players finish the tutorial, they are introduced to a beautifully crafted open-world experience filled with dungeons and bosses that provides players with endless ways to play the game. Players can challenge these bosses, which are located in five towers spread throughout the region. The bosses are extremely challenging, but they create an incentive for players to get stronger and to collect more pals.

In the tutorial, players are also introduced to the game’s “skill tree” mechanic, where players level up and gain technology points that they can use to unlock schematics for different structures, decorations, assembly lines, and guns. When players level up, they also gain “stat points,” which they can invest into five stats: HP, Stamina, Weight, Work Speed, and Attack.

These are all amazing features; however, Palworld’s main reason for blowing up is its notorious “pals,” which are reminiscent of the creatures in the popular game franchise known as Pokémon. These powerful creatures, known as pals, can help players by fighting other pals or doing manual labor for the players, such as mining stones, chopping down trees, planting and watering crops, crafting items, helping build structures, cooking food, and preserving food.

However, one major problem that players are experiencing is the large amount of bugs and glitches in the game. Players have complained about falling through the ground, glitching into wall textures, and even black screening. Palworld being this buggy was inevitable, however, because Palworld’s development team only consisted of 30 people and because the game is currently still in alpha.

Due to Palworld’s explosion in popularity, many players flocked to the Steam store to purchase the game. Palworld retails for only $30 on the Steam store while being more complete and having more content than most $60 games. The gross earnings of Palworld have reached around $164.6 million and the game averages approximately 500,000 players daily, having peaked at 2.1 million players, which is the second highest in Steam history.

Palworld is only available on Steam, the PC gaming port, and Xbox. Currently, Palworld is ranked 6th on the Steam charts for active player count, with it being ranked 1st during the entirety of its first month of release. 

What is even more impressive, is the fact that Palworld wasn’t developed by a big developer, as it was developed by a small indie developer company known as PocketPair.

PocketPair is a Japanese video game developer based in Kyoto, Japan. Before the creation of Palworld, PocketPair developed games, such as Craftopia, Overdungeon, and AI: Art Imposter, all of which were unsuccessful. After many flops, PocketPair decided to draw inspiration from many popular games to create the game of its dreams. The technology skills of “Ark”, the catching and fighting mechanics of “Pokémon”, and the way-points and maps from “The Legend of Zelda.”

Overall, Palworld creates a fresh open-world experience with many exciting things to keep the player entertained; however, glitches prevent it from getting a perfect score. All things considered, Palworld deserves a score of 7.5/10.