Palworld dev refuses to be baited into Helldivers 2 comparison: "I don't like you. Console war baiting in 2025 is beyond stupid"

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"We just didn’t make a PS5 version, that's all"

Pal wields a massive turret in a screenshot from Palworld
(Image credit: Pocketpair)

Palworld's outspoken community manager and designer has clapped back at an Xbox fan account on Twitter for "console war baiting."

The Twitter account in question posts, "Palworld is still successful, but Helldivers 2 flopped and lost the majority of its players," alongside a screenshot showing the former game with 84,961 concurrent players and the latter with 23,794. Both games did phenomenally well when they launched last year and have seen their player counts slowly stabilize to more consistent levels, but if you look purely at peak player counts, Palworld did fare far better, with over four times as many players at its most popular – it beat Cyberpunk 2077's player record and even surpassed 2 million concurrent players.

"Why do you think PlayStation is a failure at making [multiplayer] games," the account asks? "Palworld peak success was during Xbox console exclusivity." While it's certainly true that PlayStation has been struggling with some of its multiplayer projects as of late, reportedly cancelling a Horizon MMO, it has always been more well-known for its single-player offerings.

Palworld's community manager, Bucky, didn't like the post. "I don't like you," Bucky writes in a quote tweet. "Console war baiting in 2025 is beyond stupid. Palworld never signed an exclusivity agreement with anyone. Stop using us in your shitty bait tweets. I promise you no one cares about this faux discourse other than you, and even then I doubt you do either."

Well, that's them told. When asked why Palworld was on Xbox and PC first if there was no exclusivity arrangement, Bucky replies, "We just didn't make a PS5 version, that's all. None of our games have ever been on PS before and it wasn't until we saw so many PS fans asking for it that we decided to try porting it over."

Bucky admits he shouldn't give these kinds of posts any engagement, but writes "I'm a weak man and Twitter always shows me these posts the instant I wake up… when I'm at my weakest."

As for the console wars, one market research firm believes Nintendo will be the "clear winner" of the next generation thanks to the Switch 2, and Sony and Microsoft will be battling it out for second place, with whichever comes third struggling greatly.

Instead of worrying about console wars, check out our 50 most anticipated games of the year – they're releasing on everything.

Issy van der Velde
Issy van der Velde
Contributor

I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.