Palworld 1.0 Launch Draws Over 500,000 Steam Players

The video game Palworld has officially launched its full 1.0 version, marking its exit from a two-and-a-half-year Early Access period and sparking a major resurgence in its player base. The full release went live globally on July 10, 2026, introducing a massive expansion of content that has drawn hundreds of thousands of new and returning players to the survival crafting and creature collection game.

Upon release, the game quickly climbed Steam's charts, with concurrent player counts surging past 500,000 on the platform alone. This represents a significant jump from its steady pre-launch daily player base, which typically ranged between 30,000 and 70,000. The launch reinforces Palworld's status as a long-term hit, a notable achievement for a title that first went viral in January 2024 with its "Pokémon with guns" premise and record-breaking concurrent player numbers.

The scale of the 1.0 update is unprecedented for the game. The official patch notes are extraordinarily lengthy, described by the developer's community manager as so extensive they broke Steam's standard character limit for news posts. The update adds 72 new creatures, known as Pals, with 47 being entirely new...