Palworld has broken Counter-Strike's all-time concurrent players peak at 1.8 million, and is now #2 most played game on Steam ever. It is only behind PUBG which holds the record at 3.2 million.
and this doesn't even include any of the GamePass players, right?
The game wouldn't run for me on GamePass, crashes every 15 seconds... so I guess I'll on Steam.
I think it's only steam.
It runs on steam, i host a server and sometimes got some big old frame drops. Otherwise it runs pretty well for me.
No it's on Gamepass. I downloaded but haven't played yet
I have a minor conspiracy theory about the Game Pass launch: it almost seems like they made the game pass version intentionally worse/buggier. Still had fun gameplay but lacking features that a lot of people want, some odd oversights (e.g. no menu to quit the game in the PC game pass build, have to alt+F4) and more stability issues. That gives people a chance to try it, find out they like the game, learn it's better on steam, and then buy it there.
That's exactly what happened with my entire friend group (we also wanted a Private server for more people and persistent world regardless of who is online, which GP version can't do currently).
Rationally, I recognize that it's probably a matter of the build being different, limitations when running in the Microsoft ecosystem (though other games are about to connect to private servers, even if it's less straightforward) and the GP version is primarily for console (runs on PC as well, but the menu screens feel like console ones). But it certainly didn't hurt their sales that the Steam version was clearly better.
I wonder if it runs good on the steam deck
30fps on lows from what I remember seeing others post. Allegedly there is a mod to help performance on Deck, too
Friend of mine joined my server from his steam deck, and was using the deck dock to a 52" TV, said it was running beautifully.
I've been playing it for a while now, quite fun. It reminded me of tech modpacks that incorporated Pixelmon in Minecraft, although this is much more refined. It has much less of a Pokemon vibe as people give it credit for. Other than mounts, you have no control of what abilities your pal uses, and it is much less focused on rock-paper-scissors and more on the terrain and damage delivery because of its real-time FPS nature.
I honestly don't understand how people saw this slop and all just threw their wallets at it. The only way I can cope with this beating fucking Counter Strike is that it's "Adult Pokemon" premise was too interesting to pass up. I can't imagine it'll be like this in a month or several. As an outsider this is beyond bizarre to watch. Maybe PETA got to me but it turns my stomach watching people gleefully butcher and enslave Pokemon.
Yep! Clearly I'm in the minority thinking it's distasteful to take innocent, bright, goofy looking creatures that resemble the childhood characters most of us grew up with and literally fucking slaughtering them with a butcher knife for soup. I'd rather shoot unnamed terrorist #32 in his terrorizing face. Correct.
If the game wasn't also low effort slop that's borderline an asset flip with how many designs they've stolen, I'd probably tolerate it more but I'm awestruck so many people are eating this trash up and celebrating it.
I hope Game Freak sees this as a wake up call. People will kill for a Pokemon game with a little innovation.
I don't think that GameFreak will see this as a wake up call. And even if it does, it might not do the necessary changes to Pokémon main series.
The stagnation runs deeper. It is partially caused by inertia ("we're selling well, why bother innovating?"), but also by GF's insistence on making the main series story-driven instead of gameplay-driven. Even if story-driven Pokémon goes a lot against the franchise's biggest strength - a wide, unique, and immersive universe to explore.
They're probably finding out all the ways to sue PalWorld in.
It's actually pretty good. there's a little jank but a lot of heart. I was surprised to see that Every pal had battle, working, eating, and petting animations.