Palworld’s Wild Success: 8 million Sells in Just 7 Days, Overtakes Cyberpunk 2077

Palworld, the quirky monster-collecting survival game dubbed “Pokémon with guns“, exploded in popularity over the launch weekend. 

With a budget of only $6.7 million Palworld is breaking all records and becoming one of the biggest gaming crazes in recent memory. 

But not without controversy. 

Just days after its January 19th early access launch, Palworld shot up to become the No.1 most-played game on Steam. 

It surpassed giants like CS: GO and Dota 2, hitting a peak concurrent player count of 1.85 million.

Smashing Records Left and Right

A few of Palworld’s impressive Steam records so far:

• 2nd highest peak concurrent players ever on the platform (1.85 million) behind PUBG
• Most played Japanese-developed game, beating Elden Ring
• 2nd most played “paid” game behind PUBG

Palworld also sold a blazing 5 million copies in its first 3 days according to developer Pocketpair. 

For perspective, a big Sony exclusive and $315 million budget title – Spider-Man 2 took 11 days to hit the 5 million sales mark.

Despite being on Xbox Game Pass day one, the indie game still sold at an insane pace of 86,000 copies per hour.

Updated (27th January) – 8 million sales + 1.5 million Xbox Game Pass downloads 

Clearly, the weird monster collecting/crafting formula resonated loud and clear.

Controversy Around Similarities

However, Palworld’s meteoric success hasn’t been without controversy. 

Many Pokémon fans took to social media to point out the striking similarities between Palworld’s “Pals” and actual Pokémon designs.

With its monster befriending, turn-based battles, and catching mechanics, it does bear an uncanny resemblance. 

But legally, the developers seem to have just skirted the line to avoid copyright issues.

Growing Pains

Like any overnight smash hit, Palworld’s servers have struggled under the massive influx of new players. 

Features on Xbox still lag behind the Steam version as well.

For the tiny Tokyo studio Pocketpair, scaling up so rapidly has doubtlessly been a rollercoaster. 

But with millions of sales already, they have the resources to grow the team and smooth out the ride.

At the end of the day, Palworld clearly filled an untapped niche by combining monster collectors with survival/crafting gameplay. 

What do you think of Palworld’s meteoric rise to fame? 

Let me know in the comments!