Palworld has "sold over 1m copies" just hours into its early access launch

Eye-catching ‘Pokémon with guns’ survival game Palworld has already sold a staggering 1m copies according to its developer Pocketpair, just hours into its early access launch on Steam and Xbox Series X/S. That’s as the studio addresses the lack of 32-player dedicated servers on Xbox and PC Game Pass, saying the situation is “not up to us”.

Palworld’s whole , if you’re unfamiliar, is that it combines Pokémon-style creature catching with open-world survival and crafting, giving players the option to exploit (or eat) their Pals in the name of completing tasks more efficiently if they so choose.

It’s a proposition that’s evidently resonated with players in a big way; Pocketpair has taken to social media to announce that Palworld “has sold over 1m copies in about eight hours since release”. That’s an astonishing number, particularly given that Palworld’s day-one inclusion on Game Pass means plenty of people can play right now without directly purchasing the game.

At the time of writing, Steam is reporting Palworld as its top-selling game, with over 370,000 people currently playing – making it the store’s third most-played title at present. That mega-success has already resulted in launch-day server woes, with Pocketpair warning of possible server instability and connection issues due to a large influx of players.