Palworld’s Early Access May Have Already Cleared One of its Most Important Hurdles
Palworld’s recently launched early access has drawn huge amounts of attention, and the game has potentially already overcome a significant challenge.
The ambitious Palworld released in early access on January 19, and has surprisingly taken the gaming industry by storm in its short time of public availability. It is clear that the project takes great influence from massive franchises such as Pokemon, Rust, and ARK, yet it has managed to stamp out its own identity while offering some seriously addictive gameplay.
It is difficult to overstate just how important the first days of any project’s early access launch are, and it is safe to say that Palworld has enjoyed a lot of success during this potentially problematic time. While the game has faced some criticism due to the inspiration it takes from other IPs, its launch has already proven that the early access game has a fantastic blueprint to build upon in the future.
Palworld’s Early Success Bodes Well For the Game’s Future
Palworld is being developed by the Japanese studio Pocket Pair, which first found success with 2020’s Craftopia. Craftopia laid a lot of the groundwork for Palworld, with the former possessing the same crafting and survival elements as the latter, though the presence of diverse creatures known as Pals is what gives the more recent project its own breath of life.
Since its early access release, Palworld has already amassed a huge following, even breaking some longstanding records in terms of playership. Just two days after release, Palworld hit a staggering figure of almost 1.3 million concurrent players on Steam, thrusting it near the top of the platform’s all-time highest player count figures. Already, Palworld has beaten the player count records of the following high-profile titles:
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Elden Ring
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Baldur’s Gate 3
Palworld Has Already Proven Itself To the Gaming Industry
Becoming only the sixth game to ever reach over 1,000,000 concurrent players on Steam, Palworld has proven its appeal to the gaming industry. This overnight success is rare for an early access game, especially from a fairly new studio, meaning that Palworld has already passed the giant hurdle of appealing to a wide audience while in its most bare-bones state.
The premise alone of “Pokemon with guns” was clearly enough to pique the curiosity of players, but the layered game mechanics of Palworld are a pleasant surprise to those who were expecting more of a one-dimensional and gimmicky experience. As Palworld progresses through its early access state, the breadth of the game’s content will only grow and become more polished, which could easily spell even greater heights for the title’s near future.
By having already garnered a dedicated following, Pocket Pair can now focus entirely on Palworld‘s future development without the stress of building a community, with the funding that the game has already secured hopefully being put right back into the game’s future. In what is already one of the most memorable early access launches of all time, Palworld has smashed through a barrier that many other releases have struggled with in the past.
