Palworld recently hit the tremendous milestone of 40 million players, and its fireball 1.0 update is already sending it speeding toward the next one. Alinea Analytics market analysis lead Rhys Elliott estimates the survival game has already sold close to around 1.8 million copies since Palworld 1.0 launched on July 10.

Elliott explains on Substack, "In terms of premium unit sales, our platform estimates put Palworld at roughly 30.5M copies sold, with nearly 86% of that total originating on Steam." We can now christen Palworld "one of the biggest new gaming IPs ever," as Elliott calls it, as it's already amassed something like $700 million in revenue its mere two-and-a-half years of life.

In comparison, Pokemon – also known as Palworld's opponent in an ongoing copyright infringement showdown with IP owner Nintendo – hasn't sold over 30 million copies for a single game since Pokemon Red, Green, and Blue in 1996, according to Serebii webmaster Joe Merrick. The entire Pokemon universe nonetheless outsells little Palworld by at least a couple hundred million copies.

So, some players on Steam, in particular, are eager to defend fragile franchise Palworld from barking dog Pokemon, as Elliott etsimates 65% of Palworld players are on Steam, compared to 31% of players on Xbox and Xbox Game Pass, and a meager 4% on PS5.

Elliott observes, "English-language reviewers framed buying [Palworld] as an explicit statement against – in their words – Nintendo's anti-competitive business practices, actively celebrating the resolution of Nintendo's legal challenges against Pocketpair." (It's worth noting the lawsuit technically remains unresolved.) Lack of console loyalty radicalizes you.

It also activates your Apple Pay. 1.5 million of those total 1.8 million, post-1.0 Palworld copies sold were on Steam, this report finds. PS5 players, in comparison, bought about 300,000 Palworld 1.0 copies, while Palworld sold only another 70,000-ish units on Xbox once it launched in full – probably because the game continues to be available for 'free' on Game Pass Premium.

To me, all this makes Palworld a gleaming example of how strong the PC market has become now that Xbox and PlayStation are openly just experts in being unlikeable. Because of the customizable nature of the platform, PC gamers tend to value flexibility, agency, and a sense of ownership. This self-effacing spirit seems to have fueled Steam players rallying around Palworld, itself, in some eyes, a bulwark for free will against Nintendo's angry Gengar eyes.

"The console sector is undeniably facing an existential crisis," Elliott says. "If the baseline buy-in for next-generation hardware approaches a $1,000 digital-only box, mass-market growth is effectively dead on arrival. High-priced, drive-less hardware introduces a nuts barrier to entry."

"Casual consumers will simply opt out of newer hardware," the analyst continues, "redirecting their time and wallet share toward mobile, PC, or existing hardware." Good for Palworld, bad for consoles.

Palworld has been "life-changing," lead says as Pocketpair's survival game hits almost 1 million concurrent players on Steam.

Palworld 1.0 has been out for over a week now, giving players ample time to get to know the survival game's latest monster Pals and their, um, curves. Which is to say, Pocketpair publishing and communications lead John "Bucky" Buckley regrets putting out an open call for new skin ideas.

"Theoretically, hypothetically, conceptually, and spiritually…if, with absolutely no promise of it being realized or coming to fruition ever, but if…capital I and capital F…" Buckley writes on Twitter, "IF…any of the new Pals in 1.0 were to get a skin, which would it be and what would the skin be." Fans express-delivered the answer straight to his doorstep, and he screamed: Sekhmet maid skin.

Sekhmet's namesake is a fearsome Egyptian goddess, but Palworld instead decided to create a heavy-lidded catgirl wearing a strapless black dress. So, I'm sorry, Buckley, but we were always going to arrive at "Sekhmet maid skin."

Still, I know that accepting the consequences of your actions doesn't necessarily make them more palatable, and so Buckley has decided to explode maid skin proponents with psychokinesis. A mere three minutes after posting his initial call for skin ideas on Twitter, the Pocketpair lead followed up with an image of the Watchmen's Doctor Manhattan disintegrating an enemy to his left while maintaining perfect posture.

"'Sekhmet maid skin,'" Buckley says gravely. "Me on the right, you on the left."

"How about Venusa maid skin though?" responds one Palworld player.

"But an actual maid outfit for Solene though?" says another.

Another wonders, "Fine then how about Anubis maid skin?"

Come on, people, show some decorum. Save your thirst for the upcoming Palworld dating sim.

Palworld 1.0 brings a revelation to longtime fans who never crafted an invaluable item: "I thought they were consumable."

Palworld 1.0 is here, over two years since Pocketpair's hit survival game launched into early access, but many players are only just finding out that they've been avoiding unlocking one of the most useful items at their disposal this whole time.

In a Reddit post that's amassed over 1,500 upvotes at the time of writing, one player comes to the site with a revelation: "Lockpicks are infinite," they declare, seemingly causing the bustling fanbase around them to abruptly stop for a moment and gawp at the discovery.

You can unlock Lockpicks on the Technology Tree, with three different versions capable of opening increasingly more valuable chests. As the Reddit user points out, they're not the cheapest items to craft – the v3 version requires 30 Paldium Fragments, as well as 20 Nails and 30 Pal Metal Ingots, for example, as well as your valuable technology points to unlock it – but that makes a whole lot more sense when you realise that they're not one-use consumables as many had assumed. Oh, no – these are key items.

"I had been avoiding making lockpicks because of the steep crafting cost. Learned that you only need to make a single one," the enlightened player writes, adding: "Other people in the official server I'm on also didn't know about it, so I wanted to spread the word."

Spoiler alert, they're definitely not alone. "…what," begins one response. "Welp that makes two things I need to do as soon as I get back into the game lol."

"This was something I was actually entirely unaware of," says another. "I honestly, never crafted a lockpick before, but now I might." Another adds: "I haven't made any lock picks because I thought they were consumable." Oh, how wrong they were.

There's really no downside to unlocking the lockpicks, although some players make a valid point, that if you have a Mimog on your team, then your mimic chest-like buddy can open chests for you without you having to spend a single key or deal with the Skyrim-esque lockpicking minigame. And hey, they're pretty cute, to boot. But if you'd rather have room on your team for a different Pal, then you know what to do.

Palworld has been "life-changing," lead says as Pocketpair's survival game hits almost 1 million concurrent players on Steam.

Less than two weeks after launching into 1.0, people are still piling into Palworld. The monster-collecting hit came within spitting distance of a huge milestone, attracting more than 950,000 concurrent players over the weekend.

Numbers gleaned from SteamDB have the survival game's recent peak at 961,897 concurrent players, while SteamCharts give a slightly different read out at 956,613. There are always slight variations for these things, but the point is, Palworld almost brought in over one million players at once, a feat the game hasn't managed since its first arrival into early access over two years ago.

"Mind boggling numbers," John 'Bucky' Buckley, head of publishing and communications at Pocketpair, says in a tweet. "Thank you so much, gamers. Palworld 1.0, and Palworld in general, really has been a surreal and life-changing experience."

He believes this is likely the height of the game's popularity, at least for now. "I'll make an educated case and say this is Palworld 1.0's 'peak', though by no means would I consider that bad in any way!" he writes. "The support we've received over the last two-plus years has really been overwhelming."

There are many, many studios on Steam who I think would love to be able to boast this kind of interest. Though it's a case of so close yet so far for the one million mark, since Palworld's all-time record is over two million, I imagine everyone is truly satisfied by the community's response to 1.0 thus far.

Plenty more is coming too. Beyond updates to the base game, we have that dating sim on the way, and Buckley's hinted at other secret projects in the works as well. The future is looking distinctly pally – just don't expect anything underwater.

Palworld would collab with Ark, No Man's Sky, and Enshrouded "tomorrow" if "we could make it make sense," says publishing chief.

Palworld recently got its long-awaited 1.0 update, with patch notes so big they can only be described as monstrous – and boy, has it brought in a lot of players.

In fact, the survival gem saw its new full release spur enormous player numbers – and loads of positive reviews on Steam to boot. In fact, Pocketpair's game has even managed to overtake Valve's own Counter-Strike 2 in terms of its concurrent players a couple of times on roundups of Steam's most-played games.

Fans have caught sight of Palworld doing so over on Reddit and the like… but they're not alone. The developers have evidently noticed its climb up the Steam charts, too.

We officially have reached #1 on Steam!!!! from r/Palworld

Head of Pocketpair publishing and communications John "Bucky" Buckley acknowledges the feat over on Twitter, showcasing a screenshot of Steam's most-played charts – and Palworld's spot right at the top, with Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 following right behind it.

"Pause," writes the lead. "Let me enjoy this moment for just a little longer." A well-deserved moment, too, if I do say so myself, considering the sheer amount of content 1.0 boasts.

Fellow industry heads are chiming in as well, with Pearl Abyss (the studio behind Crimson Desert and Black Desert Online) PR and marketing director Will Powers commenting, "It's a good feeling. Well deserved." In response, Bucky says, "Thank you, gamer."

In a separate post, Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe celebrates the game's achievement, sharing his thanks with fans and expressing how glad he is that players are enjoying it.

It's wholesome, and it's nice to see a team that started as an indie group now thriving. Pocketpair's not done with Palworld yet, either, with more for the game and beyond up its sleeve.

There's still the Stardew Valley-esque farming sim Palfarm to look forward to, which will be a nice cozy counterpart to Pocketpair's flagship title, and the admittedly cursed Palworld dating sim that's also underway at the company.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a base to go build, and Pals to command – those trees aren't going to chop themselves, after all, and I'm in dire need of more wood to use on my virtual home.

Palworld would collab with Ark, No Man's Sky, and Enshrouded "tomorrow" if "we could make it make sense," says publishing chief.

The Subnautica 2 Bioscanner is a crucial item used to reveal valuable information about the underwater wildlife so you can use it to your advantage. Using it allow you to unlock a number of handy active and passive Biomods - but you might be having trouble getting your scanner to work.

This is because the Bioscanner is actually an upgraded version of the standard scanner you fabricate in the early game, and without this important modification, your scanner won't unlock Biomods. You even need to go and rescan creatures you've already processed with your basic scanner in order for them to count, so here's how to get the Subnautica 2 Bioscanner modification.

How to get the Subnautica 2 Bioscanner mod

To get the Subnautica 2 Bioscanner, you must first find one located in a Cicada Wreck in the third area of the map. It's easy to find once you progress enough that the PDA shows you the location of Iso's Black Box.

Using a Repair Tool, fix the door blocking your entrance, then follow the path through the wreckage. If you get stuck, look for vents in the floor or holes in the wall. In the final room (which is horribly disconcerting due to being sideways), you'll find the Bioscanner sitting just by the exit door.

Like many other blueprints unlocks in the survival game, scanning the Bioscanner here unlocks the blueprint for you to craft your own. However, rather than a standard blueprint, this is the blueprint for a modification to your existing scanner.

Once you've unlocked the Bioscanner modification, you need a Modification Station and the following crafting ingredients:

• Your scanner
• 2x Enameled Glass
• 3x Conduit Crystals

Luckily, if you're having any trouble with these, I've got guides on finding Conduit Crystals and crafting Enameled Glass in Subnautica 2 to help you out. If you haven't unlocked the Modification Station blueprint yet, you'll also find one of those in the same Cicada Wreck as the Bioscanner, just before the vent, and there's another in the Visitor Center back near the lifepod.

With your new modification installed, you can now use your Bioscanner to unlock the secrets of the creatures and alien technology surrounding you. Then, scan Subnautica 2 leviathans, Sandspears, and more to unlock some of the best Subnautica 2 Biomods.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Palworld developer Pocketpair has shown it isn't shy to collaborate with other major IP, with last year's huge Terraria update adding a themed dungeon, weapons, and armor – not to mention, a new crossover raid boss and, oh right, fishing, too. Later in the same year, we saw an even less likely collab with the acclaimed FPS Ultrakill, which aptly added a bunch of new guns and base customization to Palworld.

Pocketpair has yet to reveal what's next for Palworld in terms of major collabs, but publishing chief John "Bucky" Buckley has revealed a few of the games he's had on his crossover wishlist. Talking to Game8, Bucky says his desire for certain Palworld collabs will never supersede canonical logic. For example, he says Pocketpair is especially keen on collaborating with Studio Wildcard's Ark, but nailing down the logistics is another story.

"We'd love to work with ARK if that ever came around. We're very close to those guys. We just released a bundle with them," Bucky says. "But actual asset collaborations [take] a lot of time. How do you put dinosaurs in Palworld? It's hard to figure that out."

I don't know, I think dinosaurs and Palworld are a perfect match. You already have plenty of dinosaur-adjacent Pals, why not just... add some more? Or, better yet, add some hyper-realistic Ark-themed skins and turn those cartoony goobers into ferocious monsters based on real-world history. It's a video game, just say there was a glitch in the space time tapestry that allowed real-life dinosaurs to slip through, or something.

Bucky says he also wants to collab with Enshrouded and No Man's Sky, but as with any potential Palworld crossover, everything has to make sense logistically. "If we could make it make sense, we would do it tomorrow," he says.

In all seriousness, a Palworld No Man's Sky collab seems like a very natural fit. I'd love to see what kind of bioluminescent alien weirdos Pocketpair could conjure up with Hello Games' blessing, not to mention, all of the crossover potential with vehicles and base-building. Unfortunately, it very much sounds like Bucky was just spitballing when he mentioned these hypothetical crossovers, but hey, a guy can dream.

Palworld 1.0's first update stops teleporting from temporarily freezing your game and save data being "unintentionally discarded after certain operations."

Palworld 1.0's first patch is here, and although its list of changes can hardly compare to the monstrously long patch notes that came with the survival game's exit from early access, Pocketpair has made some key bug fixes across all platforms that should make the experience much more enjoyable.

As outlined in a post on Twitter, Palworld patch 1.0.1 includes just four tweaks to Pocketpair's survival game. First up, Pal tamers should now have a bit more regard for fire safety – an "issue where the burning status could continue after touching a campfire" has now been fixed. Maybe don't go around touching campfires in the first place, though.

The remaining fixes are for slightly more serious issues. For one, Pocketpair has now ironed out a problem "where save data could be unintentionally discarded after certain operations." It doesn't explain what these "certain operations" were, but regardless, your save data is now safe.

Speaking of save data, it turns out that the PS5 version of the game was previously subject to "a save error" that could "repeatedly occur when attempting to return to the title screen." You guessed it, that's now been fixed, too.

Finally, if you've been playing Palworld on Xbox, you might have noticed the game may sometimes "freeze for approximately 30 seconds after teleporting." Now, you can teleport without a care in the world, without being slowed down by an annoying wait afterward.

Palworld 1.0 has had a phenomenal start – the update saw the survival game's concurrent Steam player numbers rocket, soaring past 855,000 during its first weekend. It's a number that would have put Palworld within the top 15 largest Steam peaks of all time, if it hadn't already secured third place with its monstrous two million plus concurrent players back near the start of early access.

Needless to say, Pocketpair's efforts are certainly paying off, and it doesn't sound like the devs are slowing down any time soon. The studio's head of publishing and communications, John 'Bucky' Buckley, recently teased that the devs have "a few other little secret things in development," noting that "the IP is gonna keep growing."

Clearly, those are things beyond the already announced Palfarm farming sim and Palworld ~ More Than Just Pals dating sim, so fans have plenty to look forward to in the future.

Palworld was originally a "factory game like Satisfactory" until it evolved into an open-world survival crafting hit, lead says.

Sometimes, playing Palworld is like listening to Stars on 45. Every few minutes, you'll spot another influence from another game and as soon as you recognise it, you notice something else. The most obvious influence is Pokemon, which is so obvious that Pocketpair are still locked into a patent dispute with Nintendo, but play it for more than a few minutes and you'll be amazed at what else you see.

When I booted up Palworld 1.0 for its first foray out of early access, I was struck by so many of these little bolts of recognition. The starting area, with a ruined church and giant monster that bears a more than passing resemblance to the Tree Sentinel's steed, for instance. If it weren't for the cute little monsters wandering around, you'd be forgiven for assuming you'd booted up Elden Ring (not to mention the game's World Tree that looms over the sizeable map). The menus, the gliding and climbing are all pure The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Ton-Pal inconsistency

In action, the game is excellent. It's fluid, the exploration feels great, and there are tons of hidden collectibles to find. Most importantly, it nails the key loop that survival games need: there is always something that you're working on, always more resources that you need, always plans firing off in your mind about what feature your base needs next.

You're not alone in working on these ideas, even in single-player. When you roam the land and capture Pals, the game's Pokenots, you gain the ability to use them in battle, sure, but why limit yourself? If you dump them at your base, they'll intelligently start working on gathering resources, building structures, and seeing off the riffraff.

It's what you could euphemistically describe as an unpaid internship. All they ask in return is a hot spring to bathe in and some food. Hell, I've worked for less. If you like your Pals with a side of tonal whiplash, you can also ignore their needs and put them to work with none of these.

As their sanity drops, you can butcher them for their meat – if you aren't bothered about becoming the game's true monster. You can also do this to the other humans in the world, receiving the loot you'd have got if you'd been merciful and dealt with them outright. You can sell captured humans, too, by the way, just in case the tonal whiplash wasn't enough and you want a tonal herniated disc.

Honestly, this put me off the game for a long while during its early access period. I knew, softy that I am, that I would genuinely feel bad if I was cruel to my Pals. The images on the store page of depressed-looking pals working on a production line just made me feel sad. Happily, you don't have to take this route, and can give your Pals 5-star treatment if you're similarly afflicted.

Just as in the real world, death is a part of life for the Pals, however. If you want to make things as easy on yourself as possible, you'll want to kill some wild Pals for their meat, which will keep you and your domesticated Pals fed very efficiently.

Biological flamethrower

One of the game's big draws during its early access period was its mixing of Saturday morning cartoon vibes with the likes of actual firearms. This could have easily just been done for shock factor, fading into meaninglessness, but the game features a wide array of weapons that showcase a deep appreciation for the combat system, ranging from stone axes all the way up to plasma cannons.

They're fun to use, too, with even the early bows and arrows feeling tactile and impactful. This cannot really be said for using your Pals in battle in the traditional sense: the real-time combat system makes it feel too chaotic to savor, the screen filling with flashy animations that obscure your view.

Grab the appropriate gear, and your Pals can even become your weapons. The first one of these that you'll encounter will be Foxsparks, a fiery fox who can be picked up and used as a biological flamethrower. You never saw Charmander do that. I had a great time going full Bill Kilgore on a base full of bandits called the Rayne Syndicate. They might have assault rifles, but I've got a fox chambered in God's own calibre.

In its 1.0 release, Palworld now has a proper story, but if you're not about that life, there's no shortage of other paths to follow. Want to sneak into a wildlife preserve to poach some rare Pals? Want to go dungeoneering? Just want to start breeding Pals for their best traits? You can do all of these, or none of these.

This reflects the one real issue I have with the game, which is that it still feels profoundly unfocused. It's like a hot dog: made of offcuts, probably not as good as something else you could be doing, but ultimately satisfying. It's a game that feels cobbled together, but switch your brain off and play, and you'll likely find yourself sinking many hours into it.

Our games like Palworld recommendations can help you find more like this, and our best survival games ranking can take you even further!

Palworld recently saw the release of its long-awaited 1.0 update, with patch notes so big they can only be described as monstrous – but with the new content has come new controversy.

Social media is being, well, social media. Amid all of the praise Palworld 1.0 is receiving, there are folks hoping to spur a bit of negativity, apparently – a seemingly never-ending story for the survival game, which has been in the limelight since its early Pokemon comparisons back in 2024.

Recent conversations have caught the eye of head of Pocketpair publishing and communications, John "Bucky" Buckley, though. He reveals as much in a new online post, calling the online chatter out. "The usual suspects out in force on Twitter trying to stir up as much Palworld fuss as they can for $," he warns. "Stay vigilant, gamers. Play games, enjoy your hobby, don't get sucked into manufactured dramas by people posting 50 times a day to make $1."

Bucky signs off with a conclusion I think many of us would agree with: "You can like any game you want!!"

Although the publishing lead doesn't point out what specific "Palworld fuss" he's seen, I've spotted a few, erm, opinionated threads floating about here and there myself recently – but overall, Palworld 1.0 is doing just fine reception-wise.

Heck, the game has seen extremely positive reviews on Steam and massive player numbers. It's safe to say that many fans are enjoying Pocketpair's full launch… and then some.

It's important to note that this isn't the first time Bucky has commented on online "hate," so to speak. Earlier this year, he referred to what he jokingly called "professional Palworld haters" in an interview with us, saying that ultimately, they're "not really" the developers' problem to deal with.

"There's a couple accounts out there that make it their life's mission to, almost daily, go after us," he said. "But at this point, just, who cares?"

That's a good way to think about it, if you ask me – and like I said earlier, Palworld certainly isn't hurting for positive feedback. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a base to go build.

Palworld devs have "a few other little secret things in development" amid plans to "keep expanding" the survival game's universe.

It's all go for Palworld right now. The monster-hunting survival game just went 1.0, to absolutely incredible results, and a dating sim spin-off is currently in the works. According to developer Pocketpair, more is coming, including some surprises you may want to watch out for.

"We're thinking carefully about what we might do next," John 'Bucky' Buckley, the head of publishing and communications at Pocketpair, tells Game8. "We've got some spin-offs we're experimenting with, and hopefully we'll be able to figure out how to keep expanding the Palworld universe."

One of these is More Than Just Pals, the romantic social adventure wherein you play a new transfer student at Private Palpagos Academy, which looks obscenely fun. I mean, there's apparently the option to eat your fellow students, and what could be more appealing?

There are no hints about what these other side games could be, but a Pokémon Stadium-esque release seems like an easy win. Of course, Pocketpair will never beat the comparisons if this does happen, but at the same time, why not?

Buckley is clear that Palworld as a property is going to get bigger and bigger. Pocketpair has "a few other little secret things in development," he adds. "The IP is gonna keep growing."

When you consider the game managed to draw in over 885,000 concurrent players on the back of the update 1.0, there's room for a lot of confidence in the existing release and where the property could go. Pocketpair's sense of humor and creativity are such that I believe the devs would approach things with the right attitude and expectations, too.

Where this all leads is an open prospect, as Buckley acts coy about committing to what Palworld may look like in five years. If the first two are anything to go by, whatever it is will be big.

Palworld 1.0 redesigns multiple Pals and makes them look less like Pokemon

Palworld 1.0 is finally here, over two years on from its monumental early-access launch, but once upon a time, Pocketpair's creature-collecting survival game could have fallen into a very different genre – albeit still with all the cute Pals that fans have grown to love.

While often compared to Pokemon when it comes to its creature collecting aspects, and the likes of Ark with its survival gameplay, speaking in a recent interview with Game8, head of communications and publishing at Pocketpair John "Bucky" Buckley explains that Palworld was originally supposed to be a factory game like Satisfactory.

"It started life as, 'Wouldn't it be fun to have a factory game like Satisfactory, but instead of machines, it was little creatures? Wouldn't it be fun if those little creatures were each their own individual, rather than just miscellaneous creatures that were working? Wouldn't it be fun if [there was] creature collecting?'" he begins. "And then it turned into open world and survival crafting naturally. The game has changed a lot from the original concept, but I think the core idea of Factory Sim with your Pals is still there."

Of course, we can still see some elements of Palworld's factory sim inspirations in the game today. Your Pals are capable of using workbenches to craft things for you, for example, or farm things for you.

It makes me wonder if Pocketpair could ever release a spin-off that leans even more into the factory sim genre in the future. After all, the devs are already making Palfarm – you guessed it, a farming game – as well as, uh, Palworld ~ More than Just Pals, a dating sim which (for better or worse) isn't an elaborate April Fool's Day joke.

Palworld devs "had high expectations for 1.0," but with over 855,000 concurrent Steam players, lead says "this is staggering."

Palworld developers are reacting to the game's massive resurgence in player count thanks to the launch of 1.0.

Over on Twitter, the Palworld Twitter account celebrated hitting 850,000 concurrent players on Steam (with the game's 24 hour peak on Sunday, July 12 hitting 855,525, per SteamDB). The post reads, "We can't believe it! Following the official release, Palpagos is once again bustling with Pal Tamers! A huge, heartfelt thank you to everyone playing Palworld. We hope you're enjoying Palworld 1.0!"

Meanwhile, head of publishing and communications at Pocketpair, John 'Bucky' Buckley, reacted on his own account, giving his thanks to the players who have dropped in for the game's 1.0 launch. "Obviously, we had high expectations for 1.0 internally, but this is staggering. We really hope you are enjoying your time in Palworld again!"

The 855,525 concurrent player count lands Palworld within the top 15 biggest games ever on Steam when it comes to concurrent players, just below Baldur's Gate 3 (875,343) and above Battlefield 6 (747,440). Or rather, it would land Palworld there, except it's not even Palworld's biggest.

When Palworld launched into early access in 2024, the game reached 2,101,867 players. That number – at the time – gave it the second-highest number of concurrent players on Steam ever, just behind PUBG: Battlegrounds. However, it's since slipped into third following the release of Black Myth: Wukong.

Even so, this new number is still a hell of a resurgence, given that the highest the game ever reached post-launch was 273,204 the following month, and since last August, the game's monthly peaks have generally stayed below 100k.

Palworld 1.0 redesigns multiple Pals and makes them look less like Pokemon.

The Palworld 1.0 patch notes are gigantic, but an understated element of the update was only spotted after players dove into the new content themselves. Several old Pals have been redesigned, seemingly to bring them up to par with modern creature designs, but many fans also noted that the new versions put some distance between similar Pokemon designs that sparked comparisons in the past.

On the Palworld subreddit, user Silverr98 assembled side-by-side comparisons of the new designs for four updated Pals. Verdash, a green bipedal Pal, is now a bit shorter but has much longer ears, a less pronounced collar, and poofier shorts.

I think this is all redesigns from r/Palworld

"Verdash actually has its own identity now instead of giving off 'legally distinct Cinderace' vibes," Reddit user Pends101 says in a reply, and they're not the only one that feels this way.

"Verdash is now a smol boi instead of grass Cinderace," says Twitter user Rasen.

The Pal Robinquill, whose colors and overall shape drew comparisons to the Pokemon Decidueye, now sports an olive green cloak and a leaner silhouette which sheds the feather headpiece altogether.

Similarly, Fenglope, which previously used colors close to the horse-like Pokemon Cobalion, now uses a purple palette and has more flame-like horns.

Players also spotted a small change to the Pal Grintale, whose bright yellow eyes and jagged smile were often compared to the Galarian version of the Pokemon Meowth. After update 1.0, Grintale has subtle eye markings and straight teeth, with more of a Cheshire Cat vibe overall. Congratulations on getting the braces off.

Obviously, Pocketpair hasn't drawn a straight line from these changes to the Nintendo lawsuit it's still dealing with, but assuming it was a motivating factor, this wouldn't be the first time the developer has updated Palworld to avoid overlap with Pokemon.

Reactions to the new Pal designs seem pretty positive overall, and they do feel closer to the more recent (and, in my opinion, generally better) Pal designs. We still haven't topped the best Pal design of all time, though: Chillet.

Palworld 1.0 sees the survival game's biggest Steam player spike since its record-breaking early access launch and 96% positive reviews: "Better than even Pokemon."

Well, it's here. Palworld 1.0 is now officially out, with a short story's worth of patch notes for fans to pore over before they dive in. Naturally, plenty of people have been flocking to the monster-collecting survival game, either for the first time or as returning veterans, causing the biggest spike in concurrent players on Steam since the period around its massive early access launch.

According to SteamDB at time of writing, Palworld currently has 302,384 people playing at once on Steam. Although that pales from the two-million-plus we saw when the game first became available back in 2024, that's a sizable amount of concurrent players nonetheless, and this is during unsocial hours in the United States.

Once North America wakes up, we can expect plenty more to join the party. The closest peak to this post-launch was in December 2024, where over 212,000 people were playing at once. Palworld's kept a consistent audience while it's been in early access, always staying in the tens of thousands even when not much was going on update wise.

On top of this, Steam reviews are in an extremely healthy position as well. Right now, Palworld 1.0 is at 96% positive reviews looking at the hundreds of ratings posted today, as dedicated fans have decided to give credit where it's due.

"Thank you for creating the game so many of us always wished Pokemon would become," says one review left today, July 10, from a fan with 140 hours on record. "Rather than waiting for that vision to happen, you brought it to life through your own original IP, and the result feels both familiar and refreshingly unique."

There's a lot of anti-Nintendo sentiment after the company pulled Pocketpair into a legal battle over alleged patent infringement. "Much better than any Pokemon game I have ever played," a fan writes. "Better than even Pokemon," another echoes.

Whether by protest against the home of Mario and Zelda or genuine curiosity, plenty are enjoying Palworld. Now that Pocketpair's put out 1.0, the sky seems to be the limit. Just don't expect any underwater swimming.

Playing Palworld 1.0 with mods can "cause issues," Pocketpair warns, so it's recommended you uninstall each one before updating the survival game.

The Palworld 1.0 patch notes are here and, as promised, the changelog is monstrously huge. Developer Pocketpair has pushed its hit survival game out of early access with 72 new Pals, a level cap increase, and massive overhauls to practically every corner of the monster-tamer.

In the lead up to Palworld's full launch, the studio teased that its 1.0 update would be absolutely huge – in reality, the patch notes are big enough to take on a kaiju, and the developer writes that it includes "large-scale overhauls across many aspects of the game." That it does. "The journey that began in Early Access reaches its climax, and from here, a new Palworld begins."

Top of the list, new Pals! 47 of them are entirely fresh and 25 are variants of existing Pals, upping the game's total to a hefty 287. You can find the newbies across the world, with many of them chilling in the game's new areas.

Speaking of, Palworld's world is expanding with a floating archipelago of islands called Sunreach. "Kept aloft by the power of Paldium, this land holds an environment unlike the surface, with a unique civilization that has taken root over long years," the game's patch notes read. "Sunreach introduces a wide range of new content, including new Pals, tower bosses, and ores that can only be mined using specialized equipment."

Then there's the World Tree, which everything seemingly leads up to: "Why do the factions of the Palpagos Islands keep fighting over ownership of the towers? The mystery hidden on this island is finally revealed. The key to the story of Palworld is the World Tree, towering over Palpagos, and it is here that players will face their greatest challenge yet."

To connect all the dots, old and new, Pocketpair has also reworked the entire game's narrative. Exploring the world and conquering tower bosses now supposedly connects to the World Tree on a deeper level, while new NPCs and "story-driven, continuous sub-missions" provide more context for the world in general.

There's so much more to delve into elsewhere in Palworld 1.0. An 'Awakening' mechanic that sounds vaguely like Pokemon's Mega Evolutions, improvements to combat and balance, a new level cap of 85, new passive and active skills, overhauls to tower bosses, fresh base-building and multiplayer features, over 100 new Pal animations to give them all a little more personality... you get the gist.

If you're planning on jumping in for the first time or the 100th, I'd recommend at least taking a quick glance over the list of changes. Just make sure you remove all your mods before loading up.

Palworld price won't increase as update 1.0 takes it out of early access, Pocketpair says it's "a small way of saying thank you" after unbelievable success.

You'll need a keen eye looking for Subnautica 2 Sandspears. These powerful creatures might be large and deadly, dealing significant damage with just one bite, but they also hide themselves underground until you get too close to avoid them.

Unfortunately, you need to get close enough to Bioscan one of these killer fish if you want to unlock all the Subnautica 2 biomods, so here's where you can find them, and how to scan a Sandspear without dying.

Where to find Subnautica 2 Sandspears

You can find Subnautica 2 Sandspears in the area around your lifepod and around the Observatory. However, they bury themselves almost completely under sand, so look for a blue antenna sticking out of the ground, surrounded by sharp teeth, as seen in the image above.

Get too close to this ominous indicator, and a Sandspear will instantly pop out of the ground and sink its teeth into you, dealing serious damage - so you might want to make sure you have some medkits on you when seeking them out.

Here are some good locations to look for Sandspears in Subnautica 2:

• Swim 65m from the lifepod at 250° SW, then to a depth of 25m
• Swim 110m from the lifepod at 60° NE, then to a depth of 30m
• Swim 140m from the lifepod at 90° E, then to a depth of 20m

Generally speaking, you can find these fish by swimming along the surface of the ocean, both in the area around your lifepod and near the Observatory - there are no Sandspears in the Alien Ruins area of the map.

You'll then need to scan the monster in order to unlock two new Biomods, so read on to find out how to get close enough to do so.

How to Bioscan Subnautica 2 Sandspears

To scan Subnautica 2 Sandspears, get close enough to hit one with your Feedback or Sonic Resonator, which should force it out from underground. The Sandspear will then become passive for a while before reburying itself, during which time you can use your scanner.

If you get too close and the creature attacks, it will also become passive before it hides again, so you can also use this time to scan the Sandspear. Clearly, since it only attacks when you get too close, it's just a bit defensive.

The most important thing to note if you're trying to unlock the associated Biomod is that you need to scan the Sandspear with a Subnautica 2 Bioscanner - not just a regular scanner.

If you're looking for some other fish to scan, check out our list of all the Subnautica 2 leviathans, but be careful getting close to them.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Playing Palworld 1.0 on a modded save file might accidentally break a few things, so developer Pocketpair is telling everyone to uninstall all mods ahead of the survival game's update. You've been warned.

After more than two whole years and over 40 million players, Palworld is officially leaving early access tomorrow - that's July 10, if you're deprived of a calendar - and the full game's changes sound absolutely sweeping. Communications lead John 'Bucky' Buckley recently shared that Palworld's 1.0 patch notes were sitting at 10,626 words and 66,550 characters, well above Steam's 32,000 character limit for blog posts.

That means Pocketpair are likely dusting off and making changes to almost every corner of the already-huge game, which will have unintended side effects for many a mod.

"Thank you to the amazing Palworld modding community, for their continued creativity and dedication to making fun mods for all to play," the developer writes in a recent social media PSA. "Palworld 1.0 introduces major changes to the game's underlying systems, and we've confirmed that mods installed before the update can cause issues during gameplay if left installed."

To avoid anything breaking or crashing or otherwise going weird, the studio recommends "temporarily removing all installed mods before updating the game." And to ensure everything keeps working normally, the dev asks everyone to re-install each mod one at a time and check their compatibility status with 1.0.

"It may take some time for mods to be updated for 1.0, so we kindly ask for your patience and understanding," it writes. "Palworld has always welcomed mods, and this will remain unchanged even after 1.0. It's been about 2.5 years since we started Early Access, and we're truly grateful to everyone in the community! We look forward to continuing to make Palworld even better with your help."

In other news, Pocketpair recently walked back plans to raise the price of Palworld once it left early access. As a thank you for the game's outsized support, the dev instead decided to keep selling it with a $29.99 price tag.

For now, here are the best Palworld mods to download now (just cross your fingers they work in a few days time.) If you're just getting into the game, also check out the best Palworld starters to catch first.

It's a big day tomorrow, July 10, because Palworld 1.0 finally arrives, kicking off a new era for the monster-collecting survival game. All sorts of preparations are going on at developer Pocketpair, including getting the patch notes ready, which has proven more troublesome than normal due to how long they are.

So long, in fact, that they reached – and surpassed – Steam's character limit on update posts. John 'Bucky' Buckley, the head of publishing and communications at Pocketpair, put up a screenshot of his predicament on Twitter.

"How to fit… patch notes… on Steam," he captions an image, showing that the latest post had exceeded the 32,000 character limit of Valve's marketplace. Pocketpair's document was sitting at 10,626 words, and 66,550 characters. Bit of an overshot. A tricky problem, but where there's a will, there's a way, and just over two hours later, he posted an optimistic follow-up.

"Fixed it without making any compromise," he says. "See you tomorrow gamers." This has sent ripples through the community, as players who're ready to dig in start contemplating the notion of reading the novella's worth of changes for everything that's been added and tweaked.

There are 27 pages of patch notes in total, and when goaded to share them pre-emptively, Buckley made a classic move and posted a low resolution image of the whole thing. Impossible to read, but hilarious. One fan on Reddit made the same joke I did, by responding with that quote from Zoolander: "What is this? A center for ants?"

And seriously, John, what is this? Patch notes for ants? But players are bracing themselves. "Time to make time to read the book," says one Redditor. "What a way to generate hype for an update," adds another. "'We changed so many things that Steam can't even list all of them.'"

Palworld's always been good at getting people talking, and this is no exception. We'll see what emerges when it's time for 1.0.

Palworld price won't increase as update 1.0 takes it out of early access, Pocketpair says it's "a small way of saying thank you" after unbelievable success.

The price of Palworld will stay at $29.99 even after the apparently massive 1.0 update finally brings Pocketpair's survival game out of early access after more than two years.

Pocketpair announced this slight change of plans today, ahead of the 1.0 launch on Friday, July 10. "After much thought, we have decided not to raise the price of Palworld following the 1.0 release and will keep it at $29.99," the studio begins.

"We are incredibly proud of how far Palworld has come. Thanks to the amazing support of our players, it has become a success beyond our wildest dreams. As a small way of saying thank you, we'll be keeping the price at $29.99. Thank you for your continued support."

For years, Palworld's Steam early access blurb has said, "The price of the game may increase at or closer to the official release." It's long been expected that it would jump to, say, $39.99 for update 1.0.

It's normal for early access games to go up in price when they hit version 1.0 and 'officially' launch, or sometimes even after major update milestones mid-early access. Developers have made a fair case for this approach in the past: price reflecting additional content, rewarding early players for supporting development and tolerating some jank, and setting games up for a more sustainable future.

For example, Subnautica 2, one of the biggest early access success stories of 2026, will increase in price after early access, per developer Unknown Worlds.

Palworld, of course, doesn't have to worry about its future. With a staggering 40 million players (not copies sold, but immense nonetheless), the game has made Pocketpair so much money that it can hardly spend it all. The company has opened its own publishing arm and announced multiple Palworld spinoffs, including a card game.

Earlier this year, Thomas Mahler, head of early access action RPG No Rest for the Wicked, made the case for bumping its price to $60 post-early access. "The reason the game launched at $40 was simple: Early Access players should get a discount," he said, adding that he "never loved" the approach of early access games like Baldur's Gate 3, which were full price from the get-go.

Palworld lead says there's no "bad blood" between rival survival games like Valheim and Rust: "We all get along really well because we all have something in common!"

From the outside looking in, it would appear that Undead Labs is a victim of mismanagement. The team was acquired by Xbox Game Studios in 2018, just weeks after the release of State of Decay 2. A sequel is set to land in 2027 after navigating a turbulent trajectory – revealed before it was ready for public consumption, development stalling during pre-production, challenges in shifting to Unreal Engine 5. The survival shooter finally opened its doors to public alpha testing earlier this spring.

Undead Labs didn't contribute any new games to the ecosystem in eight years. That's an irrefutable fact, which may speak to why Xbox just sold the studio as part of an internal reset. Although that doesn't mean the team hasn't been busy.

State of Decay 2 was a quiet success – amassing 10+ million lifetime players by its fourth anniversary. Undead supported this community with an expansion, multiple updates, new features, and years of refinements. Given how starved PS5 is for new co-op titles, it's shocking SoD2 wasn't part of the first wave of Xbox games to abandon platform-exclusivity. Another error from the prior Xbox administration.

Xbox has historically done a poor job of drawing attention to collaborations across XGS. The Coalition is an Unreal Engine 5 center of excellence. Other teams have made use of Ninja Theory's high-end motion capture studio. Rare provided the networking know-how for Double Fine's Kiln. Blizzard lent its cinematics expertise to Playground for Fable. Obsidian's proprietary dialogue editor is used by various in-development RPGs at Xbox. There's countless other examples.

Just like State of Decay helping bring Grounded to life. Operating with a small budget, Obsidian sought a novel way to achieve its co-op ambitions. And so it turned to Undead Labs, who had developed a system to store world-data as a shareable save file in the cloud. It's what allows multiple players to independently drop into the same persistent world without requiring a community's host to be online.

"It's almost like a pseudo-dedicated server space," Marcus Morgan, Obsidian's VP of operations, told me last year. "It's effectively just a shared cloud save, but you don't need any of the dedicated server infrastructure – or the cost that goes with it."

"The intention behind that was, because we were a small team (there were only like 20 people working on it, and the cost of making it was relatively small) this was a good way to satisfy player's needs," he says, adding: "That stemmed from a collaboration between us and Undead Labs. I have to give a big shout out to that team. They built this tech initially, and then we built upon it."

This 'Shared Save' technology helped Obsidian scale quickly to build more vibrant and collaborative backyards. Eventually, Undead received an expanded 'Shared World' system in return – allowing State of Decay 3 to support far larger communities, no longer constrained by the co-op tethers that plagued its predecessor. It'll be interesting to see whether the tech evolves again in the future.

Still, it's an interesting example of the sort of value that Undead Labs brought to Xbox, and the way the XGS group has been able to leverage wider expertise to bring concepts to life. Eight years without releasing a new game clearly isn't enough for this next era of Xbox, but the legacy of Undead Labs and State of Decay will live on through Grounded 2's ever-expanding Brookhollow Park forever.

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Subnautica 2's developers have detailed the Early Access 1.1 update, and while you still can't kill the fish, you'll be able to have a scrap with them.

Outside of that big old legal drama, the biggest drama out of Subnautica 2 since its launch has been the fish-killing saga. The game is filled with terrifying underwater beasts, so naturally, some players really want to start blasting.

These requests inspired a response from the devs, with one saying, "We aren't a killing game. Go play Sons of the Forest or something if you want to kill." This comment naturally inspired a bit of ire from the community, but some were a little more proactive, with one of the first mods for the game being a mod that lets you kill the fish.

And while "creature mitigation" was promised, the devs stuck by their no-killing rule, and thanks to the Subnautica 2 Update Vlog for Early Access 1.1 (titled Adaptive Measures), we now know what that entails.

First off, the devs have "done some work around creature flinches," Subnautica 2 Creative Director Anthony Gallegos explains, "so if you smack them with the Survival Multi-Tool, you'll get that reaction out of them before they flee to really let you see and understand the impact you're having on them."

And while you won't be getting a proper gun, the Sonic Resonator is now a stun gun. As Gallegos explains, "we've done some work on the Sonic Resonator, where a bunch of the creatures now have stun states, so when you hit them with the Sonic Resonator, you'll see them clearly communicate that they've become stunned." He adds, "That's all in an effort to make you feel like you're having the mitigation of creatures that we want you to feel, which has also been a major part of your feedback."

I'm simultaneously happy to see the devs take what is the biggest piece of feedback on board, while also sticking to their own vision. Compromises like this will hopefully get Subnautica 2 to a place where it'll stand alongside the legendary first entry.

Subnautica 2's first major update "brings back one of the most requested player experiences" and will be "the scariest the game has been yet".

Two and a half years since its Early Access launch, Palworld has passed a monumental 40 million players right before its 1.0 release – a number so impressive that it further widens the gap between it and the most popular Pokemon games in history, according to data.

Pocketpair has celebrated its latest milestone on social media, thanking players for their "incredible support" since launch. The hit survival game earned an enormous fanbase immediately after its release, quickly smashing Steam records – it became the second game on the platform to reach two million concurrent players (although Black Myth: Wukong later joined it in this league, and surpassed it).

Palworld hit 32 million players across all platforms in February 2025, meaning it's reached a further eight million in the last year or so – an impressive feat, especially while it's still in early access. Pocketpair communications lead and publishing boss John 'Bucky' Buckley previously told us this number was "unexplainable," saying that "a lot of people don't realize how much of an anomaly that is."

Now, as pointed out by fans on social media, there's also an interesting comparison to be made here. Widely circulated data of Pokemon's historical sales records (via Serebii's Joe Merrick) puts the series' top-selling game (or rather, games) as Pokemon Red, Blue, and Green – the very first releases. Specifically, it's believed they collectively sold around 31,380,000 copies.

Unlike some have suggested, this doesn't strictly mean that Palworld has outsold this trio of OG Gen 1 Pokemon games. Pocketpair specifically states its latest figure accounts for "players," which is an important distinction when the survival game is available to play via an Xbox Game Pass subscription.

Back in January 2024, the company demonstrated this when the game hit 19 million players – it explained that the figure was made up of 12 million copies on Steam, and seven million players on Xbox. Every copy sold is a player, but not every player is a copy sold.

Of course, it's still an enormous achievement to surpass Pokemon's golden trio in players, even if not sales, and with the upcoming 1.0 launch of Palworld on July 10, there's no doubt that Pocketpair is going to see another surge in sales. Maybe with that, the company really will be able to surpass them.

Arc Raiders and Marathon aren't "dead" just because their concurrent player count has dropped, Palworld lead says – but he's "not denying that some games do 'die.'"

Along with the announced cut of 3,200 employees at Xbox, a number of studios like State of Decay 3 creator Undead Labs have either split from the company or gone independent – which also means, in the case of the zombie survival threequel at least, Game Pass might be off the table.

Just yesterday, Asha Sharma revealed the Microsoft layoffs, noting that Xbox sees three to 10 times lower margins than "comparable platform and publishing businesses." This "significant restructure" of the company also means that several studios – one of which is Undead Labs – are officially moving under other brands or going indie, splitting from Xbox. The State of Decay 3 developer itself will see new management, although it's unclear who just yet.

Although we don't yet know who Undead Labs' new owner will be, part of the exit deal between the team and Xbox may mean State of Decay 3 won't have to launch on Game Pass.

As per a recent report from Game File, while the deal does call for the release of the game, as well as the continued funding required up to that point, it doesn't leave State of Decay 3 obligated to Xbox-controlling terms, like being available on Xbox Game Pass. That's certainly interesting.

It's especially eye-catching as State of Decay 3 was just showcased during June's Xbox Games Showcase 2026, where it finally got a 2027 release date – a date fans had waited six long years to hear about.

The supposed continued funding is always nice to read, but I'm admittedly left wondering what other implications this entire situation might have for the third State of Decay entry. It's difficult to tell.

As for the other companies that will no longer be operating under Xbox, there's Psychonauts dev Double Fine, South of Midnight creator Compulsion Games, Senua studio Ninja Theory, and Arkane – a team that is notably currently working on Marvel's Blade. Management at the latter is "beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options," so it's not yet clear exactly what's happening there.

Some of these, like the first two, are independent now. Meanwhile, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs are finding new homes to work within.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says "a healthy Xbox could weather" the current storm, but Microsoft's gaming brand is anything but: "Our core has to be healthy."

100 Days at Sea codes reward you with valuable Gems that you can trade for cute companions (very important when you're stranded at sea) that each have their own abilities to help you survive on your raft. You can also buy new classes with these Pearls, also giving you buffed stats, so the in-game currency is pretty important.

Thankfully, you can get more Pearls with 100 Days at Sea codes when they're available, but they don't last long, so check back here often and redeem codes quickly to get ahead in the survival Roblox adventure.

If you'd prefer some more general rewards that can be used in all of your experiences, then we've got the current Roblox promo codes covered too.

All 100 Days at Sea codes

These are the 100 Days at Sea codes you can redeem right now:

• There are currently no active 100 Days at Sea codes

100 Days at Sea codes so far have been for Pearls, the in-game currency. However, they expire quickly, so it's worth redeeming the valid codes as soon as you see them.

Luckily, 100 Days at Sea codes aren't case-sensitive, but I'd still recommend you just copy and paste them from above to be on the safe side.

How to redeem 100 Days at Sea codes

To redeem 100 Days at Sea codes, simply launch the game and click on the Codes button at the top of the screen. Enter an active code into the box, hit Submit, and enjoy your rewards.

Expired 100 Days at Sea codes

• ALIENS - 20x Pearls
• 20PEARLS - 20x Pearls

As I've mentioned above, the only 100 Days at Sea code so far expired incredibly quickly, so you'll need to redeem any future codes as soon as possible if you want to avoid missing out.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Against the Storm might've been a Game of the Year contender in 2023 if it hadn't been released in December, when most of the lists and awards had already been distributed. But a 91 Metacritic score and 94% positive Steam reviews are nothing to sneeze at, and after multiple years of support, the devs are ready to reveal their follow-up. You might think that a similar city-building strategy game would be the safe bet, but that's not what they want to do – instead, we're getting a survival game set in the world of Against the Storm.

"There's a chance we're showing this way too early," the devs at Eremite Games say in a Steam news post accompanying the reveal of the as-yet-untitled survival game. "We hope you won't hold it against us if the project evolves into something very different. But keeping this under wraps has been torture. We're still just a small, 6-person indie team, and this kind of openness feels more natural to us."

The news is accompanied by a very brief teaser video showing a taste of the new game. In it, we see a character wielding a gun slowly approach a spooky-looking house on a hill in the middle of a stormy night. Another character soon approaches in what seems like a pretty clear tease for multiplayer.

But the devs have a "small warning" before we start to infer too much. "For many months, please keep your expectations very modest," they warn. "The project is still in its earliest phase, full of placeholders, and nearly everything you see is subject (and likely) to change. There's a saying circling in the gamedev industry: 'Just make it exist first. You can make it good later.'"

The studio's development philosophy certainly seems to have worked out for Against the Storm, which enjoyed a two-year stay in early access before its eventual 1.0 launch met with wide acclaim. It's continued to get support and still has at least one more update on the horizon, but the devs reckon it's time to move on.

Yet while they're taking a risk with this genre shift, Against the Storm 2 is certainly something they've considered. "The idea of a sequel is something we think about often. But this time, we wanted to experiment with the survival genre and explore new facets of the Against the Storm universe."

Whether you're looking for best city-building games or the best survival games, we've got you covered.

Subnautica 2's protracted legal battle has come to an end. Publisher Krafton will now pay the developers at studio Unknown Worlds even more than what was previously planned.

As Bloomberg reports after speaking with fired-then-reinstated CEO Ted Gill, Krafton has agreed to a legal settlement with Gill and fellow ousted co-founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire. The entire development team at Unknown Worlds, riding high on a huge Steam early access launch that has utterly eclipsed the original Subnautica, are also in for a big payday.

Gill says the Subnautica 2 team will be "compensated significantly more" than specified in the terms of Krafton's original acquisition agreement, with "further incentives" to come. Additionally, this bonus will now be paid to everyone at the studio, not just Gill, Cleveland, McGuire, and the devs who were at Unknown Worlds at the time of the acquisition in 2021.

In other words, after all that noise, the devs get their bonus and the founders get a settlement.

This whole mess orbited a $250 million earnout payment which would have seen Krafton award Unknown Worlds large bonuses if it hit certain revenue milestones by a specific deadline. With over four million copies sold in just launch week, Subnautica 2 has been a smashing success and certainly looked poised to hit those milestones.

The ousted executives, accused by Krafton of neglecting their duties, in turn accused Krafton of firing them and sabotaging Subnautica 2's launch to avoid paying the bonus. A judge later said that Krafton CEO Changhan Kim had repeatedly asked ChatGPT how to dodge the bonus.

However, Gill is still leaving Unknown Worlds. "We mutually agreed to part ways," he says. "New leadership is the best way for the studio to move forward." A new CEO not tied to the developer or publisher will be appointed. So ends one of the most colorful legal circuits in recent memory.

Subnautica 2's first major update "brings back one of the most requested player experiences" and will be "the scariest the game has been yet".

The dusty, wet, and unfriendly grime of a survival game doesn't seem like the perfect place to meet a nice acquaintance, but Pocketpair head of publishing and communications John "Bucky" Buckley suggests it might be. Survival games aren't nearly as unwelcoming behind-the-scenes.

Buckley writes on Twitter, "So many people view survival games as competition to each other, and think there is bad blood." But he says that "actually, we all get along really well because we all have something in common! We love survival games!"

It seems Pocketpair developers particularly get along with the teams behind renowned survival games like Rust, Valheim, and Ark: Survival – 10 of these types of popular titles make up the Super Survival Summer bundle available now on Steam. The entire package costs $148.40 in total, which is a 25% discount from the $197.90 these 10 games would have originally cost together.

Still, the Super Survival Summer bundle isn't the most dramatic discount available during the Steam Summer Sale running now through July 9. After all, you can purchase the originally $50.96 Binding of Isaac: Rebirth Complete Bundle for $5.06, a price that should turn your eyeballs into a pair of lucky dice. But about $150 is nevertheless a sweet price to pay for 10 big deal games. In addition to the titles mentioned earlier, and others, the Super Survival Summer bundle contains Palworld, V Rising, and Windrose, and it seems like an ideal opportunity for survival game professionals to grab those games for an easy $15 each.

The Bundle is also the fruit of Buckley's own love for survival games, as he shares on Twitter, "This has been a personal side project of mine since the start of 2026." When a valiant survival game soldier then tells the developer that they already own every game found in the Bundle (it's understandable if this happens to you, too; most of the Bundle's games were cataclysmic internet phenomena at some point), Buckley advises them to "buy it again and gift it to the person you want to punish most in life."

Brutal, but good advice. It comes when we could use it. time. Between rampant layoffs and serious price increases in the video game industry, it's nice to remember our ability to survive.

I've spent 5 hours diving into the Steam Summer Sale with our features editor, and these are the 11 best games on discount I'd recommend.

The next Terraria update is going to be a big one. Yo-yos are getting substantial attention, alongside a hearty rebalance to make sure every class feels good play. And to top it all off, there's a huge hotfix on the way - historically large, in fact.

Developer Re-Logic literally calls it the "largest hotfix type update in Terraria's history," in a brief overview of what's coming. "We are very ready to get what we hope will be the last (or darn close to it) hotfix update for Bigger and Boulder into your hands and then to get rolling on what comes next," the post reads.

There aren't any specific details given, but there's a lot of anticipation for this, since Bigger and Boulder arrived in January, and it certainly seems implied that the devs are attempting to tackle all the residual bugbears in one big sweep.

One fan in the official forum jokes that "at some point we'll need a hotfix for the hotfix if it keeps going," and why not? Time to start stacking hotfixes, it's only fitting for the survival game.

Ted "Loki" Murphy, the head of business strategy on Terraria, mentions that this will accompany more balance changes. "We have spent a lot of time this go-round looking into entire classes of weapons - making sure things feel fun, relevant, and worthwhile," he writes.

One key aspect of this will be yo-yos. Murphy points towards a video by YouTuber Chippy, who goes deep on the fan-favorite, but distinctly flawed, weapon. Essentially, while yo-yos feel great to use, servicing as mid-range offense, upgrading them is much less entertaining and unsatisfying.

Re-Logic is on the case, as it sounds like this is something that's been on the slate for a considerable amount of time now before moving into active development. "We've seen this feedback before and have decided to go ahead and finally take action on it," Murphy adds. "We're looking into making some yo-yos more interesting/unique."

Beyond these teases, Murphy says crossplay is still on the way, and the hope is to have it ready for when this patch is live, or close to it. "We are also doing all that we can on crossplay to have that ready to go as quickly as possible once 1.4.5.7 is out to all of you," he adds. "Trying to tighten down these timelines as much as we can!"

Lots coming, as Re-Logic enters another era with the game and eschews any notion of a "final update." Long may it continue - with cooler yo-yos and all.

Epic Games boss calls Steam AI disclosures "really irresponsible of Valve" as they make it "much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success"

Developer Pocketpair's made no secret that its incoming Palworld 1.0 release is shaping up to be huge, but my backlog is now quivering after finding out the team currently has 27-pages worth of patch notes ready for launch.

Announced during this summer's marketing extravaganza, Palworld is ending its incredibly popular early access tenure on July 10, 2026 with all-new areas to explore, narrative meat to chew on, and Pals to tame. The creature-collecting survival game has already ballooned quite a bit in the last two years, but the studio's upcoming update sounds scarily large.

Pocketpair Publishing lead and communications manager John 'Bucky' Buckley recently tweeted about trying to wrestle down Palworld 1.0's patch notes. "Losing my mind trying to make nice patch notes for Palworld 1.0," he writes. "Who'd have thought that, *checks notes*, 27 pdf pages of changes and additions would be hard to make neat."

The team has practically shouted from the rooftops before about how the Palworld 1.0 update will have more new Pals and be "bigger in scale" than any previous content drop, and the changes are so deeply embedded that Pocketpair recommends starting fresh with a new save file. Next month's full launch hasn't exactly been shy about its size, then, but 27 pages really puts into perspective just how extensive these changes might be.

We won't need to wait too long to find out what's in those patch notes – Palworld leaves early access on PC, Xbox Series X|S, Game Pass, and PS5 next month.

Arc Raiders and Marathon aren't "dead" just because their concurrent player count has dropped, Palworld lead says – but he's "not denying that some games do 'die.'"

No, games aren't "dead" just because their concurrent user number has dropped over time – at least, that's what Palworld and Pocketpair head of publishing and communications John "Bucky" Buckley says.

Speaking in response to an online user who jokes that, and I quote, "Marathon is dead, Arc Raiders is dead," and, of course, "extraction games are dead" as a whole, Bucky states as much. "Just a thought but," he writes. "Do many fundamentally misunderstand what CCU [concurrent users] means?"

He continues, explaining that seeing 5,000 users at a certain time and then later on does "not necessarily mean the same 5,000 people are playing."

Some might have logged off, while others logged on instead. "This is why DAU [daily active users] and MAU [monthly active users], the tracking of 'unique players' over a period of time, is significantly more important," Bucky says. "If you played a 5v5 game for three hrs straight with a DAU of 5,000, 30-min rounds, then you would only meet 1% of players."

That's why you can't just declare a game "dead" if its concurrent user count drops at a point.

"Yes, we want games to have millions and billions of people playing, but there comes a point where games are prematurely being called 'dead' because it just gets the views," as the Pocketpair dev describes.

"Most games can chug along with a few thousand players every day and be just fine. Some of the BEST PvP games you've never heard of have been going for years like this (See: Foxhole)."

Well, he's not wrong. A quick look over at SteamDB shows that Foxhole only has 1,941 players currently, but a positive reception overall.

This sort of conversation – deeming games "dead" – is "just as tiring as it was when it started," as Bucky puts it. "One side of the room is bad actors just throwing out Steam charts to make silly points, and the other side are just fans who are worried that the game they love is on the way out."

That's not to say some titles don't die. Heck, just look at the whole Stop Killing Games debacle underway right now, the Concord shutdown, and so on – and Bucky is well-aware of it all.

"I'm not denying that some games do 'die.' Some games DO die," admits the community lead. "We've seen a few high-profile live service games come and go in the blink of an eye over the last few years, but it's a rare case. That's a fact."

After all, "There's thousands of games a year, and to blow the 'DEAD GAME' horn at them all is disingenuous."

Bucky concludes, "I'm not trying to defend these cases, I'm just trying to say that a more nuanced take on what concurrent vs unique active players is needed. Not every game needs an hourly look at Steam charts. Just a thought!"

I mean, I do understand where he's coming from. Folks love to shout about games being dead… even if they're not.

This isn't a shooter-exclusive situation, either. As a big cozy gamer myself, I see it all the time with games like The Sims 4. Titles like inZOI spring to mind immediately, even if developers continue their work and fans consistently enjoy updates. It's a tough reality that spans all genres, I'd say, even if games don't deserve that sort of commotion online. Here's hoping more people grow to understand Bucky's words, too.

"Gamers don't want it": Palworld lead says Pocketpair doesn't touch AI because players hate it and artists "like doing stuff themselves."

Redeeming the latest Paint and SEEK! codes in Roblox grants you a bunch of coins to trade in for Crates in the popular game. There's not much to unlock in Paint and Seek, but when you do get to play as a Seeker, you'll have a knife with which you reveal Hiders.

By using these codes and then unlocking Crates in the survival Roblox experience, you have the chance to find rare and even Secret knives so you can show off your luck as well as your skill when taking down Hiders.

Meanwhile, if you're looking for something you can use across all experiences, check out our list of the latest Roblox promo codes, as well.

All Paint and Seek codes

These are the latest Paint and SEEK! codes you can redeem right now:

• 5MILVISITS - 1,100x Coins
• THANKYOU5K - 700x Coins
• 6KTHANKYOU - 800x Coins

As you can see from my list, Paint and Seek codes only offer Coins, but you can then use those Coins to buy Crates and unlock random Knives.

Paint and SEEK codes aren't case-sensitive, but you should still consider just copying and pasting them from above to be sure you're entering them correctly.

How to redeem Paint and SEEK codes

To redeem Paint and Seek codes, simply hit the Settings Cog in the main menu, enter the code into the box, and hit Redeem to get your rewards. The great thing with Paint and Seek is that, unlike most Roblox experiences, you can even redeem codes during a game, so find a good hiding spot, lock yourself in, and pop those codes in!

Expired Paint and Seek codes

• 3MVISITS

Since Paint and SEEK is still relatively new, there is only one expired code so far, but I'll move any current codes down here as they expire to stop you wasting your time on invalid codes.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Grounded 2 is approaching a meaningful destination on its journey through early access. August 11 marks the launch of a massive new content update, with 'Into the Abyss' opening up the pond for exploration in Brookhollow Park. The community is also expanding, with PS5 players entering the action just as developers Obsidian Entertainment and Eidos Montreal push the survival game to version 0.5. It's going to be a big year for Grounded 2. To learn more about it, and to better understand the challenges of building such a complex project, we sat down with Obsidian legend and Grounded 2 game director Chris Parker.

We spoke this time last year to get into the reveal of Grounded 2. How have you found the last 12 months, as your game moved through the first stages of early access?

Chris Parker, game director: Getting Grounded 2 into early access was a hurdle. But we got it out there and the community has been totally behind it. They loved it, but they also played through all of the content quickly and have been asking when we were going to give them more. So for us on the development side, at both Obsidian and Eidos, our focus has been on getting this done. We've had three major updates since then.

Every time that we think we're done we can take a breath – just one breath, that's all you get, and then we keep going. At the same time, we're constantly processing all the community feedback, and trying with love to figure out how we do as much of it as we can, while recognizing that we can't possibly do all of it. And now we're on the cusp of releasing the largest content update that we've done. It's bigger than Garden, and to be launching on PlayStation 5 effectively makes this our second launch, right? We had the early access launch before, but this is like doing it all over again this summer.

Obsidian has always been very proud of its ability to co-develop Grounded 2 with Eidos, how have you found that collaboration throughout early access?

Chris Parker: I'm the one who has been working with Eidos the longest, because I launched the project with them back when it was in its infancy. They've always been great, but what's interesting about our relationship is that it's not just that we're professional or that we all care deeply about this franchise, but it's that we've learned to continually work together better, and to be stronger as a team over time.

There were a lot of times, getting into early access with the early access of the game, that we had some struggles. We would butt heads on some things, but we would ultimately figure out what the best solution for the game would be and move on. Those things occur less and less often now. What's far more likely to happen is that Eidos comes and pitches something to us, like the story for the pond, and I will just plus-one that with them. Then I'll suggest something and they get excited and plus-one that.

And then at some point, of course, we'll be out of scope and we have to pull it all back again. But it's because we built Grounded 2 into a good place together, everybody is super jazzed about it. We're ready to get in there and make this thing. Ultimately, we just keep getting better at doing this together.

Grounded 2 coming to PS5 feels like a pretty significant milestone?

Chris Parker: Releasing Grounded 2 on PlayStation 5 is huge for us. Obviously, we've been working on it for a while, it's coming out on August 11, and we didn't have the opportunity with Grounded 1 to do this with the PlayStation community. The PS4 and PS5 versions came out a year after 1.0 was released. So almost from day one, we knew that it would be truly amazing to expand the community and include PS5 users.

Getting here and being able to realize that ambition is awesome. Now we have our fingers crossed that PS5 players do want to come into the community, and that they are as genuinely interested in the development of this game as the existing community already is. I think they will, because the Grounded 2 community is super healthy, so we're just excited. It's going to be fun!

Xbox announced it's reinvesting in console exclusivity. Is this something you think about during development, or do you just want your game in as many hands as possible?

Chris Parker: As a game developer, what I want is for the most amount of players to love my game on their platform, whatever that might be. I'm going to put a lot of work into this thing, I'm going to put my heart into it – so I want you to love and enjoy it too. Ultimately, that's it. So there are other people above my pay grade that might have other opinions about what needs to happen with all that. It's not up to me. I'm just going to give it to as many people as I can. And for Grounded 2, I'm just super excited that this time around I get to pull PlayStation 5 players in with me. That's a great thing.

Grounded 2 has enjoyed a strong first year, but how are you thinking about that roadmap moving forward?

Chris Parker: From day one of this project, we had a pretty good idea of how big the park was going to be and a rough idea of how we were going to cut it. We had a solid idea of how many weapons there were going to be and how our weapon tiers were going to work. But the first hurdle was to distill all of that down to get the game into early access – a foundational level of all that stuff, just enough to build everything else on. So then the next steps were to add to the Garden. And I'll be honest with you, our original ambition for the Garden was too big, we had to scale them down a bit, and that content came out stronger as a result.

So yeah, we have ideas for the future, but the most important thing for us right now is the Into the Abyss update that's coming to PS5 and all other platforms on August 11. It's a huge content update with multiple biomes in it, there's a new buggy joining the group, we're bringing back swimming as a gameplay experience, and we're offering some other things that you can do while you're underwater too. We'll be talking about all that later.

How do you balance the need to release big content updates with the demands of a vocal, passionate community?

Chris Parker: A lot of the things that we focus on outside of the big content updates – new regions of the park, bosses, that sort of thing – are things for the community. They are actually more carefully planned, where we see things the community wants and try to deliver that. Custom Game is a good example of that, which is coming back in the 0.5 update. We always wanted to bring it back, but we were like, whatever, we'll bring it back whenever. And the community has been like, 'No, for real guys, we want Custom Game back; come on, give it to us!'

So we talked to Eidos, we did some finagling with the schedules, and we freed up resources to bring Custom Game back sooner. It won't be quite as robust as it was in Grounded 1 at first, but we are getting the big pieces in place and then we'll continue to add to it. So part of our roadmap is looking at something like Custom Game and understanding when we want to finish it, right? We want to do more with buggy progression; we got the first bit of it in with the 'Beat the Heat' update, but when are we going to finish it? So a lot of our roadmap is really about taking something that we have in the game, asking the community what they think about it, and us understanding if they want us to take it further.

Grounded 2 doesn't have a clear 1.0 release date, but it's expected to be on the 2027 gaming release calendar. The 'Into the Abyss' update is coming August 11 to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.

PUBG creator Brendan 'PlayerUnknown' Greene says he's "so very proud" of the developers behind Prologue: Go Wayback as the survival game gets its final update and becomes free for everyone, despite his sadness that "we couldn't finish the journey we began together."

At the start of the month, Greene announced that development was being "halted" on his "realistic Minecraft" survival game, with restructuring taking place at his studio, PlayerUnknown Productions, as he had "reached the limits of how far I can continue to fund this journey in its current form." Then, earlier this week, Prologue: Go Wayback was taken out of early access on Steam with one final update – it's now also free to download and keep, and players who already spent money can request a refund for a limited time.

"The games industry has been in a tough spot for a while, and we're not alone in the struggle to find funding," Greene writes in a new statement shared to Twitter today. "I'm privileged to have had the choice to keep the studio's lights on by myself, and I'm very aware that it's a luxury few developers have when they go independent. I could only do that for so long, and now we must move forward with a smaller team while finding the right partners for the project."

He's full of thanks for the dev team "for their professionalism," noting that this "was not an easy decision to take." Even so, the team persisted "despite the challenges and uncertainty we faced this past year," and as Prologue: Go Wayback goes free, "I'm so very proud of what our team accomplished and truly regret we couldn't finish the journey we began together."

Greene says, "I hope everyone will enjoy exploring the wildernesses of [Prologue: Go Wayback] as much as I have (400+ hours & still counting)," and notes that the studio's progress on its Melba technology – which the devs are still working on, albeit with a smaller team – "inspires me daily." He adds: "I love what we have achieved and built as a team. Nearly every day on the studio's Slack channels, the team posted something that filled me with hope, inspiration and excitement about the vision we are building across our projects."

He's also grateful for the Go Wayback fanbase, noting that players' suggestions have "helped us build a game of which I'm immensely proud."

Prologue: Go Wayback only launched into early access in November last year, so it's a real shame to see its journey come to an end quite so soon – even more so when it's having a clear impact on the devs behind it. The devs previously stated that "we hope the studio can return to Go Wayback at a future point in time," so perhaps one day, PlayerUnknown Productions might be able to see through what it wanted to.

Be sure to take a look at our list of new games for 2026 and beyond to see what releases are around the corner.

Hide from the Villain codes can help you to survive in this asymmetric battle, where you need to use stealth to avoid a rogue superhero until help arrives... or develop powers of your own so you can fight back! Of course, you could also swap roles and become the Villain, turning this experience on its head.

The Hide from the Villain codes currently available will provide you with some of the VC in-game currency for free, which can be used to unlock Villain skins or to buy survival items such as medkits, while also giving you the Temp V used to roll a random survivor ability and Phones to get help faster in this Roblox experience. If you're up for the challenge, then these are the codes for Hide from the Villain and how to redeem them.

If you'd like some more general rewards that can be used in all of your experiences, then we've got the lowdown on the Roblox promo codes.

All Hide from the Villain 2 codes

The following Hide from the Villain codes are available to be claimed:

• SEALORD – 500 VC, 3x Temp V new!
• BYESUKUNA – 500 VC, 3x Temp V new!
• July4th – 500 VC, 3x Temp V
• Sukuna – 500 VC, 3x Temp V

There are currently a decent number of codes for Hide from the Villain available, which will unlock in-game currency and various useful items to add to your inventory when redeemed.

How to redeem Hide from the Villain codes

To redeem Hide from the Villain codes, you simply have to tap the small CODES button on the left hand side of the lobby screen to bring up the REDEEM CODES menu. From there, use the Enter code... text box to type in a promo then hit Enter or the REDEEM button to receive your reward. Codes for Hide from the Villain are not case-sensitive, so you just need to use the correct spelling.

Expired Hide from the Villain codes

• 1MILION – 1,000 VC
• 10MVISITS – 500 VC
• SMALLCAPITOL – 500 VC, 1x Temp V
• 500KMEMBERS – 500 VC, 3x Temp V
• 5MVISITS – 250 VC, 3x Medkits
• 10kccu – 500 VC, 3x Temp V
• 300kmembers – 500 VC, 3x Medkits
• bugcompensation – 5x Temp V
• 100KMembers – 200 VC, 3x Phones
• 5kCCU – 200 VC, 3x Temp V
• Hotfix – 300 VC
• SORRY4SHUTDOWN – 150 VC, 1x Temp V
• GAMEISBACK – 300 VC, 3x Temp V
• 10kmembers – 200 VC
• 100kvisits – 150 VC
• Update1 – Rewards
• Release – Rewards

There are already plenty of expired Hide from the Villain codes to flag, as they don't seem to be sticking around for too long. As always, you should grab any active codes as soon as you get the chance, so you don't miss out on any potential rewards.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Getting Beeswax in Witchspire is something that'll become more of a priority as you leave the tutorial areas and start to explore the game properly, as it's an essential ingredient in key mid-game crafting recipes. However, it's not clear what location you should be looking in to find it, which is where I'll come in. Having found it myself, I'll show you where to get Beeswax in Witchspire and what enemies you'll have to slay to take it from them.

Where to get Witchspire Beeswax

Witchspire Beeswax is found in the Froblin Camp on R'hyrrgar, West of the Witchspire on the way to Timberline Basin. I've marked its location on the map above, but what you need to do when you're there is simply slay Froblins. Each one you kill (regardless of what type of Froblin it is, Grunt, Mage or Brute) has a chance to drop Beeswax, though it's not guaranteed.

To farm Beeswax, I suggest putting up a camp Hearth nearby and teleporting there whenever you have a strong need. Take out Froblins until you get the Beeswax you need, and if there aren't enough, teleport somewhere and come back later when the Froblins respawn (an in-game day should be enough). Keep in mind that enemies here are level 15 and up, so if you're lower level than that, make sure you and your Witchspire Familiars are ready for the conflict to come.

If you were wondering the best class and coven in Witchspire, here's everything the game wasn't explaining in its opening, or if you're wondering how to get Fine Wood in Witchspire, check out our page!

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

As game developers push back on generative AI, publishing and communications head John Buckley of Palworld developer Pocketpair suggests the division around the tech is another reason to avoid it.

"Gamers don't want it," he says, "and if the gamers don't want it, I guess that's it, right? Not much of a conversation to be had."

At this month's Summer Game Fest alone, several games, including the revived Crazy Taxi and the latest Tomb Raider, rushed to explain their use of AI after some fans reacted with concern or criticism.

Speaking with GamesRadar+, Buckley, who's previously shut down claims that Pocketpair used generative AI for some of the creatures or assets in Palworld, affirms that the company doesn't use gen AI at all.

"I'm sure some people are doing it," he says. "It's not really for us. I personally can't imagine it ever being too prominent. I'm sure there are some companies out there, some big companies, that are maybe using it to 'save time.' I don't know. I don't really think gen AI has much – I don't want to call it a bubble, but I don't know how much longer it's gonna keep up. Even Steam is pushing back a certain amount on it."

Mandatory AI use disclosures at the bottom of Steam store pages have been used to show how games were made at a time where any usage could be a deal-breaker for some people, both developers and players. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney opposed Steam's AI disclosures, which are not shared by the Epic Games Store, on the grounds that "AI will be involved in nearly all future production".

Even if you did ignore the backlash AI use regularly ignites, Buckley says Pocketpair has no need for the technology because, "We have a lot of artists in-house. They like doing stuff themselves. There's no reason to get rid of them for the sake of an AI doing it. Just seems pointless."

Buckley is less sure of the future of AI-assisted coding, but on gen AI more broadly, he says "it's hard to imagine where that goes in gaming." He points to Steam Next Fest, a seasonal event which sees thousands of game devs post demos on Steam in the hopes of reaching players. Buckley laments seeing more and more AI-generated assets and/or listing images appear in recent Steam Next Fest games, and echoes many of the complaints voiced by players.

"Even I, who is in the industry, I just felt like a natural, ugh, why? The rest of your game looks fine. Did you need to...? I think that's going to be the attitude for quite a while. I think people will look at it and say, did you need to do that? Couldn't you just do it yourself?"

Buckley previously argued that the spread of generative AI and associated tools would contribute to an "authenticity market" where creators may deliberately lead with assurances like, "This game's 100% human-made," both to head off any concerns and to separate themselves from AI-generated works. Already, I've begun to see devs clarify, unprompted, in emails and store pages that they are pushing back on AI games or that no AI was used in their own production.

"I don't know if we need to now start saying this is 100% human-made," Buckley adds. "I think we should just all assume games are human-made unless said otherwise. I think it's a bit dystopian that it might end up like that. We'll have to put a Steam disclaimer, 'This game is made by humans.' That's kind of sad to think about."

As a senior at a Japanese company, he also reflects on regional divides in AI opinions, reasoning that some markets are more open to the technology. Analysts and some other developers have also suggested that companies in China or Korea, for example, may be quicker to embrace or at least experiment with the tech. Stellar Blade maker Shift Up is one prominent example; its CEO, Hyung-Tae Kim, said earlier this year that gen AI could help Korean studios compete with the manpower of studios in China and the United States. (So far, there's no indication of AI-generated art in newly revealed sequel Stellar Blade: Blood Rain.)

"Not saying I am, but there are some markets that are a lot more willing to adapt than some others, and I think that's where the clashing will come," Buckley explains. "Two to three years from now, we'll see a bigger clash in that regard. Certainly in the West, I think people will remain pretty against [it] for a while."

Even more games on Steam are using AI: there are over 8,600 demos in this week's Next Fest event, and nearly 1,700 use AI.

The Loof Horn in Witchspire is needed if you want to improve your Hearth to the fifth level and start to unlock mid-tier items for the crafting tree. However, it's not entirely clear what a Loof Horn is or where you're supposed to find one, and even if you do work out what you're supposed to do, it's not even guaranteed that it'll work, which can dissuade people from the right mode of thinking. Fortunately if you want the Loof Horn, I've found its location in Witchspire and will lay it out for you below.

Doing more resource hunting? Check out where to find Witchspire Beeswax here!

Where to find Loof Horns in Witchspire

You can get Loof Horns in Witchspire by slaying the Granloof monsters. They're not guaranteed to drop Loof Horns, but given enough time, they will.

Granloofs are the bigger, ox-like animals found in the Trampling Grounds, an open area in the Southwest corner of the starting island, shown on the map above. They'll spawn here and wander about randomly, and are tougher than the smaller Lamloofs that are common in the area. However, most of them are around level 8, so as long as you're close to or past that area, you shouldn't have much of an issue bringing them down. If you fight enough of them, you'll eventually get the chance to bond with one of them, and they definitely make for one of the best familiars in Witchspire when it comes to the early game.

If you were wondering the best class and coven in Witchspire, here's everything the game wasn't explaining in its opening, or if you're wondering how to get Fine Wood in Witchspire, check out our page!

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Fine Wood in Witchspire is needed to make your first flying broom and all manner of other items, and while there's a few ways to obtain it, the simplest solution by far is finding the right sort of tree to cut down. Below I'll explain where Fine Wood is found in the world, and how it can actually be pretty easy to get hold of once you know where Witchspire is hiding it.

For more help with resources, check out where to find Witchspire Beeswax (for candlemaking) and the rare Witchspire Loof Horn, for Hearth upgrades.

Where to find Fine Wood in Witchspire

Fine Wood in Witchspire can be obtained by chopping down the larger trees with thicker trunks, found occasionally around the map. To do so, you'll need to get a Logging Sickle, but otherwise the process is exactly the same, with the exception that these larger oak trees require a few more attacks to break down. Once you do so, it should drop a large quantity of Fine Wood.

If you need an easy location to look for Fine Wood, there's a big tree very near the starting point of the game, marked on the map below.

Of course, if you don't have a Logging Sickle yet, you can craft one via the Workbench. You'll need the following:

• Wood x1
• Stone x5
• Spirit Dust x5

Later upgrades will let you get the Spirit Logging Sickle, speeding up the process of Lumberjackery, but this is a good start and will cover you in the early game. Of course the first thing you'll be using Fine Wood for is probably the broom, and once you can fly around, you'll find it a lot easier to pick out large scale trees from high up. However, keep in mind you can't unlock the broom recipe until your Hearth is level 4, which requires finding the rare Witchspire Loof Horn.

Make the best friend possible with our guide to the best familiars in Witchspire! Or if you were wondering the best class in Witchspire, here's everything the game wasn't explaining in its opening.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Survival game behemoth and the second hottest monster-tamer in the world, Palworld 1.0 is finally coming out next month and is set to be the game's biggest update yet, but anyone hoping to see Pals evolve will be left sorely disappointed.

Developer Pocketpair is ending the game's early access tenure on July 10, 2026 when its full release hits PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Game Pass at the same time. We don't have a comprehensive list of everything that'll be included with Palworld's 1.0 update, but the company's ever-chatty publishing and community lead John 'Bucky' Buckley has given us some clues.

"1.0 is bigger in scale than any update we have ever released," Bucky teases over on the game's Discord channel, but that doesn't mean it'll come with one of the community's most-requested features, mind you.

Asked about Pokemon-style evolutions that would let Pals permanently grow into bigger and stronger forms, Bucky was pretty definitive about the feature: "Was never planned. Never cancelled. Not on hiatus. We aren't doing evolutions." There you have it.

As much as my Pokemon-loving heart would be down for evolutions in any monster-taming game, I imagine it's a tough feature to retrospectively add when the rest of the experience wasn't designed or balanced with it in mind.

There's also the tiny, tiny issue of The Pokemon Company's lawsuit against Pocketpair, which one legal expert reckons has "zero chance" of leaving Nintendo with anything other than chump change. But, still, better to not poke the hornet's nest any further, right?

Palworld 1.0 might not have evolutions, but the developer has promised "many many many new Pals" coming to the game, alongside a new region and a more fleshed out narrative.

"We'd be fools to put this game aside": Palworld devs couldn't resist following 1.0 up with farming and dating sims, says Pocketpair lead

Nintendo's Palworld lawsuit is now due for a presentation in October ahead of a court opinion in November. IP expert and games veteran Florian Mueller expects the company to struggle to win anything beyond inconsequential damages that would hardly register as a "rounding error." However, the lawsuit has already forced developer Pocketpair to make changes to Palworld, and studio communications lead John Buckley says it's impacted team morale.

Writing on games fray, Mueller reasons that conflict between the patents Nintendo has filed or applied for and the versions of Palworld in question pose insurmountable challenges for the lawsuit. Much of Nintendo's case is based on patents it applied for after Palworld was released, and last year the company amended its claim to target old versions of the hit survival game, those that existed "before Pocketpair made changes to eliminate patent exposure."

As a result, the lawsuit's focus is now limited to a specific window of sales "for which Nintendo can seek damages," per Mueller, and remains tied to Japan. This dramatically narrows the scope of the alleged infringement, leaving the maximum project damages at ¥5 million, or around $31,200 USD by current conversions, assuming the case even makes it that far.

"That is chump change for either party, and just a rounding error compared to Nintendo's litigation expenses," as Mueller puts it.

In December 2024 – and, boy, this suit has gone on for a while, huh – Palworld replaced the ability to summon Pals via Pokeball-esque throwable spheres. Last year, it also changed the gliding mount mechanic, which neighbors a creature-riding patent involved in the suit.

Yet Palworld has soldiered on largely unbothered, with Pocketpair now approaching the game's long-awaited update 1.0 release.

"Given that Nintendo's patent assertions can't impact that release in any meaningful way, the question is whether Nintendo will recognize that patents are not the answer to competition in this space or bring additional lawsuits against Pocketpair," Mueller says.

However, this is complicated by pushback Nintendo's faced in its attempts to secure patents in other regions (the lawsuit is Japan-based, and patents are not global) as well as the established difficulties with pivoting the case to a copyright claim, which Nintendo seemingly investigated and abandoned in late 2023 or early 2024.

"Nintendo has zero chance of prevailing over current Palworld versions," games fray says in a tweet, ruling out any injunction that could upend ongoing work on Pocketpair's game.

However, though the pure financial implications appear minor, the lawsuit has succeeded in pushing Pocketpair to alter Palworld mechanics in an effort to strengthen its case against Nintendo or attempt to avoid future issues. It's important to remember that Nintendo is not suing people for profit. Rather, the company's notorious litigious streak always seems couched in establishing chilling effect precedents that could dissuade other creators from making games, including free fan games or mods, similar to its own.

In this sense, Palworld' years-old design concessions were perhaps the whole point. That, and the unusual show Nintendo made of the lawsuit in the first place (again, perhaps seeking to make its army of lawyers known far and wide).

Speaking with GamesIndustry, Buckley says the lawsuit "impacted morale, for sure."

"Last year, we publicly stated that we had to change two features in the game due to the ongoing litigation," he adds, referring to the aforementioned Palworld mechanic patches. "Unfortunately, it is still very much ongoing. It obviously has an impact on development."

Nevertheless, Buckley says, "We're making the game we like to make, and our players love that. Survival crafting is our genre, and we're going to keep making the game we love."

Last year, Buckley said the lawsuit came as a shock because patent infringement was "something that no one even considered" throughout the rigorous legal checks that Palworld cleared before release.

"We'd be fools to put this game aside": Palworld devs couldn't resist following 1.0 up with farming and dating sims, says Pocketpair lead.

Familiars in Witchspire are collectibles pets that you can add to your team and summon in combat or for tasks around your base, but most importantly, at the beginning of the game you'll be given a choice of four familiars to choose, so which is the best one? Below I'll take you through the best familiar to pick and why, so you can start Witchspire with the best friend possible.

What's the best Familiar in Witchspire to choose?

The best familiar for you to pick in the game's tutorial from my experience is Fien, the winged cat of the Nox element, as shown above.

That's largely because of Fien's Uneven Field ability, which creates deadly pools that slow and damage foes that move through them. Slowing enemies in Witchspire is an incredibly useful power, as many enemies are melee focused and you, if you have a wand, don't have to be. As a result, Fien can keep opponents at a distance while you fire magical projectiles at them, staying out of harm's way the whole time.

However, you should keep in mind that you can tame and find other familiars out in the world, including several of those you choose from the starting pool. Either way, there are ways to get the whole team of familiars here and effectively expand/reverse your choice, unlike choosing the Witchspire classes and covens.

There's plenty of secret, useful items to find out in the world of witches! To get your own broom to fly around on, you'll need Witchspire Fine Wood, while upgrading your Hearth to a suitable level will require the mysterious Witchspire Loof Horn. Or, if you want to cook up all kinds of magical candles, you'll need to source Witchspire Beeswax from a very surprising enemy.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

After Palworld became the hottest monster-tamer outside of you know what, the developers would have been "fools" to not try to capitalize on its success with spin-off games and multimedia projects. At least, according to Pocketpair Publishing head and communications lead John 'Bucky' Buckley.

Pocketpair's hit has come a long way since being dubbed by fans as the Pokemon-with-guns game. The survival sandbox broke Steam and Xbox Game Pass records within days of its early access launch, sold millions of copies, and is now well on its way to becoming full-fat franchise.

Palworld 1.0 launches on July 10, followed by a multiplayer farming sim Palfarm and a very real, very cursed dating sim called Palworld ~ More Than Just Pals sometime after. But Pocketpair's ambitions extend beyond video games – an official trading card game comes next month, and Sony's Aniplex is helping the studio expand with other multimedia projects. (Hello, anime?)

Turning Palworld into a franchise wasn't the goal from the get-go, though. Speaking to GamesIndustry in a new interview, Buckley says the team "always intended" to support Palworld for a while, of course, "but the idea that Palworld would become this IP that we would be making spin-offs for, that all came post-launch." After it reached tens of millions of players, that is.

"We had to, though. We'd be fools to put this game aside, wouldn't we? So we should at least try and continue it," he adds. Too right.

As for the main event of Palworld 1.0 itself, the game's full release sounds like a biggie. Developers promise "many many many new Pals," which should occupy all the Pal-lovers and droolers until that dating sim finally comes. But, be warned: Pocketpair recommends you start a fresh save to make sure you don't miss all the newness coming your way because, again, the 1.0 update apparently includes a ton of stuff.

Palworld underwater update "literally is never happening," lead reiterates: "Make your peace with that now."

Choosing the best class in Witchspire, also known as a Coven, is the first choice you'll make in the game, deciding on your Witch's starting wand and elemental affinity. Witchspire does kind of throw this choice at you without really explaining the factors involved, but I'll take you through all the classes in the game, as well as the best class to pick and what they do for you.

What's the best class in Witchspire to choose?

Ultimately there is no best coven or class in Witchspire, as the differences between them are actually very minor to the point of irrelevance. What changes is the colour palette of your starting outfit and the starting weapon you're given, which does elemental damage and will either be a ranged weapon (if it's a wand) or a melee weapon (if it's a spellblade).

With that in mind, I would say that if your forced a wand to my head, I would say that the best starting class could maybe be the Cloudpiercer coven, as it suggests that players will get bonuses to flight further down the road in the game's development, but again - that's only if you force me.

The other thing to acknowledge is that different covens have an affinity for different elements, but that mechanic doesn't seem to be hugely implemented in the game yet, to the point where the community seems uncertain what affinity actually does, and the official site stating that these details will be explained later. Whatever the case, it means you can probably pick without feeling the pressure. The choice about the best familiars in Witchspire that follows moments later is more important.

All Witchspire classes and covens

Currently there are six classes and/or covens in Witchspire, all laid out below along with their starting weapon and affinity.

To find the rarest resources around, level up your Hearth with the Witchspire Loof Horn, craft yourself a broom with Witchspire Fine Wood, or pioneer spellcasting through arcane candles made with Witchspire Beeswax!

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Palworld 1.0 is right around the corner, and doubling down on developer Pocketpair's advice to players to start a fresh save file once the survival hit leaves early access, one dev says if it was up to him, "I would force wipe everyone."

After more than two years in early access, Palworld's 1.0 release date was announced last week during Summer Game Fest, and since then, Pocketpair has made it clear that although existing players won't be forced to wipe their potentially years-old save files, it's recommended that they do. The devs explained: "Due to the large number of changes to the game, including overhauls to mechanics and new content, we believe that starting a new character will give you the best experience of Palworld!"

John 'Bucky' Buckley – a designer on Palworld, and also Pocketpair's head of communication and publishing – already seconded this, but now, he's trying to drive home just how important he thinks it is in order to fully enjoy the 1.0 update. Reminding fans on the Palworld Discord server that early access players starting a fresh save doesn't benefit Pocketpair in any way, he explains: "We just strongly believe that, given the large amount of fundamental changes to basically every aspect of the game, it will be much more enjoyable to start from scratch.

"If you really really don't want to, that is absolutely fine, but we hope players will understand that they will realistically be missing out on content in 1.0 then, as it isn't just all Lv65+ stuff."

Bucky stands by this so much, in fact, he adds: "If it was up to ME, and only ME, I would force wipe everyone. Luckily for everyone, that is not my decision so...your saves are safe."

Pocketpair has ultimately left the decision in the hands of players because it wants to "respect the time and effort you have put in" – I'd definitely be reluctant if I had to face the idea of giving up tons of time, progress, and Pals – but it's well worth keeping Bucky's words in mind. If you end up "missing out on content," then 1.0 might not feel as big or special as it could do.

Expectations are bound to be high for Palworld 1.0, after all – while two-ish years might not be the longest wait for an early access game to get its full launch, Pocketpair has accumulated an enormous fanbase, all very keen to dive into the full experience. That day finally arrives on July 10, so there's less than a month to go.

Palworld 1.0 sounds huge as Pocketpair lead promises more new Pals than "ever added before in any one update."

Palworld has had quite the last few days as Summer Game Fest lifted the veil on the hotly anticipated 1.0 release date – a date that's just a mere month away now.

Yes, that's right – Palworld 1.0 arrives on July 10, bringing with it various changes and, of course, additions, like new Pals. Of all the features I've been dreaming up myself for the big update, the potential of different themed Pals has been on my mind the most, honestly… and how could it not be? It's the same with Pokemon and every other creature collector, after all, and thankfully, Pocketpair seems to be cooking up quite the Pal-shaped storm.

A recent online thread from global communications lead and Pocketpair publishing lead John "Bucky" Buckley insinuates as much, as he shows off one of the apparently "many many many new Pals you can meet in Palworld 1.0" – a juggling jester-esque cutie dubbed "Dupin."

Not only does that original post imply we're getting loads of Pals in 1.0, but a comment from Bucky in response to a fan asking for an "estimate" solidifies it.

"More than we've ever added before in any one update," writes the developer – and oh, be still my Pal-loving heart. Am I now illogically looking forward to some sort of new variant akin to Pokemon's Fairy type? Erm, maybe… but, a girl can dream, right?

Regardless of what kinds of Pals we get, though, it's exciting news. Heck, there are already nearly 200 Pals in the game as it is, and that's obviously no small number by any means.

It sounds like we can keep our eyes on Bucky's account, as well as the one for Palworld itself, for more Palposting in the near future, as he warns that "I would recommend muting" the latter "until 1.0 drops" if you don't want to see new Pal spoilers. Does that mean more Pal reveals akin to Dupin's? It's sure looking that way.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some data to wipe as per Pocketpair's advice that we "should" ahead of 1.0 – and, uh, there's a lot of data there that's not exactly easy to let go of.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

Xbox has confirmed there will be more opportunities to playtest State of Decay 3 ahead of its release next year, with an "expanding" list of participants for alpha and beta playtests planned "throughout the year."

Xbox and developer Undead Labs took the stage during this weekend's Xbox Games Showcase 2026 with brand new State of Decay 3 gameplay footage and a fresh 2027 release window. It's been six long years since the game was announced, which led to the false assumption that an actual release date was imminent, but it seems Xbox isn't ready to set that in stone just yet.

That said, it appears feedback from last month's alpha playtest has been encouraging, as the developers are confidently urging fans to sign up for upcoming tests.

"We're going to be expanding our Alpha and then Beta list over time and we are dying for players to come play. We've got an audience that's hungry for this game, the signups were fantastic, they're going to keep growing and we want to get more," says State of Decay 3 creative director Kevin Patzelt in an Xbox Wire writeup.

Xbox and Undead have been fairly vague about the scope and amount of State of Decay 3 playtests that'll be held, but Patzelt says "the first wave" will be "limited" and "there will be more opportunities throughout the year."

In any case, if you want to see what the next iteration of the long-running open-world survival series is all about, you'll want to throw your hat into the ring on the official playtest website, where you can quickly submit your details for a chance to get in.

State of Decay 3 is coming out next year on Xbox, PC, and PS5.

In the meantime, here are the best Xbox games you can play right now.

Palworld 1.0 is finally rolling out next month, and while developer Pocketpair confirms that early-access players won't need to wipe their save data, it's recommended that they start fresh anyway.

During the Summer Game Fest 2026 stream, it was announced that Palworld 1.0 releases on July 10 after more than two years in early access. Palworld hit enormous player numbers when it first released – it has the third highest concurrent player peak of all time on Steam at over 2.1 million (thanks, SteamDB). Needless to say, there are a lot of people with existing save files, but it's entirely up to the players how they want to handle things going into the game's full launch.

"You do NOT need to wipe your data for Palworld 1.0!" Pocketpair writes on Twitter, before quickly suggesting, "but you should."

The devs continue: "Players can continue their existing saves if they wish, as we want to respect the time and effort you have put in.

"However, due to the large number of changes to the game, including overhauls to mechanics and new content, we believe that starting a new character will give you the best experience of Palworld!"

This point is reiterated by Pocketpair publishing and communications lead John "Bucky" Buckley, who would also "recommend starting fresh" in 1.0.

While continuing your save is an option, or using "the global pal box to move pals over" if you're attached to your collection of creatures, Bucky thinks "a full fresh save is the way to go for 1.0." He adds: "If you haven't played since the January 2024 launch then 100% start fresh."

Of course, the choice is still up to players – I know I'd be hesitant to leave behind a save file I'd been playing for over two years if it was me – but if you want to follow the official recommendation, you know what to do.

Palworld 1.0 is set to bring more new Pals to befriend, as well as areas to explore, and "fragments of a grand narrative that inches closer to the truth of the world." It's been quite some time coming – here's hoping it'll be able to meet expectations.

Be sure to keep up with everything announced at Summer Game Fest 2026 in our handy roundup.

Valheim 1.0 finally has a release date, with its long awaited Deep North biome set to arrive in just two months' time.

Announced during today's PC Gaming Show, viking survival game Valheim 1.0 is set to leave early access on September 9. Considering that it first launched on PC back in early 2021, it's been a pretty long time coming, but that's also given it plenty of time to build up a dedicated fanbase. With over 255k reviews logged on Steam at the time of writing, with a Very Positive rating, I imagine more than a few people are going to be rather pleased about this.

With the launch of 1.0, Valheim will also be coming to more platforms. Until now, it's been limited to PC, Mac, and Xbox One and Series X|S, but we now know when it'll be arriving on PS5 and Switch 2, as well.

Valheim developer Iron Gate has been teasing the 1.0 release and Deep North expansion for a while now – a dev update from just last week confirmed that "we are entering the final stages of development," suggesting that its launch might not be too far away, and here we are.

As for Deep North itself, Iron Gate previously announced that it'll be Valheim's final biome update. Today's trailer has given us a much better look at it, and as you might imagine, it looks very snowy. Icebergs cover the water, you can see a gorgeous aurora in the night sky, and what looks like an icy fog shrouds the area.

It's somewhat bittersweet knowing that this is the last biome, but obviously, very exciting overall knowing that the big 1.0 release is almost upon us. Mark those calendars, there's not long to wait now.

Be sure to check out our roundup of new games coming this year and beyond to see what else is on the horizon.

After six long years, Xbox has finally decided it's time to share more on State of Decay 3, the long-awaited next game in Undead Labs' open-world survival zombie series.

When footage of a zombie apocalypse game emerged during June's Xbox Games Showcase 2026, showing all manner of freaks like juggernauts and bloaters getting blown up and run over by players, I was sure we were getting the State of Decay 3 release date. I mean, again, it's been six years since the game was announced.

Alas, we got something ever so slightly less exciting: a 2027 release window. No exact date, but we know the game is coming out next year, which is cool! It would just be slightly more cool if we knew exactly when. Regardless, check out the new trailer and first gameplay reveal:

As far as the big gameplay reveal, well, it didn't actually reveal a whole lot. We see gangs of zombies lumbering around, we see abandoned towns being reclaimed by nature, we see player characters running around base camps and slamming into zombies with trucks, we see freaks get their heads popped, and lots of stuff on fire.

That's pretty much what every self-respecting State of Decay fan would want in a sequel, but nothing groundbreaking was revealed... with the exception of what appears to be both a jump and a dodge mechanic, which in hindsight is pretty revolutionary for this series. We also get a very limited sneak peek at the new Plague Nest areas, which Xbox calls "tough, dungeon-like" zones.

State of Decay 3 hits Xbox, PC, and PS5 in 2027.

Here are the best Xbox games you can play right now.