Palworld Crosses 25 Million Players on PC and Xbox, 15 Million Copies Sold on Steam

Palworld, the action-adventure survival title that broke player count records on Steam at launch, has sold 15 million copies on Valve’s platform. Developers Pocketpair announced Thursday that the game’s total player count had gone past 25 million, with 15 million players on Steam and 10 million players on Xbox. Since its release last month, Palworld has become a phenomenon, becoming one of the most played games in Steam history even as it has attracted plagiarism accusations over its Pokémon-style in-game creatures that players can capture, train and utilise in combat.

Japanese studio Pocketpair, makers of Palworld, confirmed in a post on X Thursday that the game had crossed 25 million players overall, with 15 million copies sold on Steam. The survival title also has 10 million players on Xbox, though a chunk of that number is likely to be players accessing the game via Xbox Game Pass.

Last month, Microsoft had confirmed that Palworld was the biggest third-party Game Pass launch ever and the most played game on its platforms. Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe had called the player response “tremendous” at the time. “This is just the beginning for us and Palworld, and the feedback we’re gathering while in Game Preview will allow us to continue to improve the experience for Pal Tamers across all platforms,” he had added.

Currently, Palworld is the fifth most played game on Steam, with 206,401 concurrent players at the time of writing, according to SteamDB charts. It’s all-time peak player-count on the platform sits only behind PUBG: Battlegrounds.

While Palworld’s player count has ballooned, the game has been a subject of controversy over the design of its in-game creatures, called Pals. Several players, developers and commentators have accused the game of plagiarising creature designs from Pokémon.

The Pokémon Company had issued a statement last month addressing the plagiarism accusations and confirming it intended to investigate any alleged instances of copyright infringement. “We have received many inquiries regarding another company’s game released in January 2024. We have not granted any permission for the use of Pokémon intellectual property or assets in that game,” the company had said in its statement.

Palworld released in early access on January 19 and is available on PC (via Steam), Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X and is also included with Xbox Game Pass. The game features Pokémon-style animals, or Pals, that can be captured and tamed for combat, traversal and base building in the game’s open world.