There are now fewer people playing Palworld than there were at the height of the game's popularity, and one of the devs behind the unlikely survival game hit says that's perfectly fine.
"This emerging 'Palworld has lost X% of its player base' discourse is lazy, but it's probably also a good time to step in and reassure those of you capable of reading past a headline that it is fine to take breaks from games," Pocketpair's community manager, who goes by 'Bucky' online, says on Twitter. "You don't need to feel bad about that. Palworld, like many games before it, isn't in a position to pump out massive amounts of new content on a weekly basis. New content will come, and it's going to be awesome, but these things take a little bit of time."
Bucky rightfully notes that "there are so many amazing games out there to play; you don't need to feel guilty about hopping from game to game. If you are still playing Palworld, we love you. If you're no longer playing Palworld, we still love you, and we hope you'll come back for round 2 when you're ready."
With Palworld quickly approaching the 1-month mark, it's interesting to look back at my own thoughts for launch.In May of 2023, I was convinced that Palworld could break the 50,000 player mark. Anything above that seemed unobtainable though, and I certainly never expected it to… pic.twitter.com/1rZaV30QONFebruary 14, 2024
In a gaming world filled with live-service titles that ask for more of your time than most romantic partners would, it's absolutely refreshing to hear any developer at any studio acknowledge that it's okay for you to play other games and find other ways to fill your time. I can't help but think of Final Fantasy 14 boss Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida, who encouraged players to consider PC upgrades related to the MMO as an encouragement to try out some other games.
"Play lots of games, try different genres, and frequently flick through indie libraries to find hidden gems," Bucky says in today's tweet. I couldn't agree more.
Palworld's concurrent player peaks have indeed dropped in the weeks that have followed launch, at least on Steam where those numbers are publicly visible. SteamDB shows that the most recent daily peak sits at 512,859, down from 2,101,867 shortly after launch, a decrease of 75%. But that still leaves Palworld as the third-biggest game on Steam, and 500k concurrent players is still within the top 15 peaks in the platform's entire history. Not bad (read: completely amazing) for a game that's still in Early Access and is likely to get a whole lot more content by the end.
If you're looking for details on Palworld multiplayer, you know where to click.
