Pocketpair, the developers of gaming’s biggest surprise hit since PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, has confirmed that its Pokémon-like game, Palworld, has already sold over six million copies globally across Steam, Epic Games Store, and the Xbox Series S/X.
This is a surprisingly massive figure for a game that isn’t available on PlayStation 5 and is also available to play on Xbox Game Pass as well as PC Game Pass. This puts it on track to beating Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which sold 7 million copies the week of its launch in 2011. Palworld probably won’t ellipse the figures posted by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2022 and Grand Theft Auto V in 2013 but Hogwarts Legacy’s numbers (12 million in two weeks) are within arm’s reach.
It’s important to note that the developers used the term “sold” and not “shipped.” More often than not, studios will try to inflate their numbers by saying that they’ve shipped so-and-so but this isn’t the same as the number of units sold. In Palworld’s case, there’s no padding involved and the eye test proves that it isn’t inflating anything. Palworld, days after setting a record on Steam as its fifth-most-played of all time, recently overtook DOTA 2 for the third spot. It’s now on track to beat Counter-Strike 2 for the No. 2 spot. Unfortunately, the No. 1 spot, held by PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, is still over a million players away.
#Palworld has sold over 6 million copies in only 4 days!
Our all-time peak player count has also surpassed 1.7 million.Thank you very much!!
Some users are experiencing problems and bugs, which we are addressing with the highest priority.
Thanks for your support! pic.twitter.com/j1CGWW52Rr
— Palworld (@Palworld_EN) January 23, 2024
Palworld is the very definition of a lightning in a bottle in the gaming industry. A game has never been this successful in Early Access, so you can only imagine how much better it can get a year from now. Even so, the consensus on Steam is that it’s an excellent game for a work in progress. 93% of its 56,000+ user reviews are “Very Positive” and most of the criticism are valid, although some can’t help nitpick on its still-unproven AI use and supposed plagiarism.
What’s particularly surprising about Palworld is its success given its studio’s size and how much it only cost to make. It’s believed that Pocketpair was willing to scrape the bottom of its financial barrel to make the game, ultimately spending a billion yen on it, which translates to around $6.75 million – a relatively small figure when Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and other AAA games can cost well up to a billion to make.
All that’s left now is for Pocketpair to prove that it’s more than just a flash in a pan. The good news is that the studio appears to be committed to seeing Palworld through.
Given that it was already willing to spend a lot of money on Palworld when it was still an unreleased and unproven product, there’s nowhere else to go but up for the game now that it’s printing money for Pocketpair.
For those who’ve lived under a rock over the past week, Palworld is a creature hunting game where knockoff Pokémon-like critters wield machineguns and where you can force these monsters, called Pals, along with other human beings, to work for you as slaves. It’s an extra edgy game that’s cloaked in fluffy clothing, to both the amusement and shock of many.
