It’s been a busy ol’ weekend for Palword, for reasons both good and bad, but there’s certainly no denying that this game has taken the internet by storm.
Often described as ‘Pokémon with guns’, Palword is an open-world survival meets crafting game where you’ll acquire a variety of creatures – known as Pals – and later arm them with guns to defend your territory. In our review, GAMINGbible’s Dan awarded Palword a score of eight, writing, “It’s astonishing how much has been packed into Palworld given its Early Access status. Sure, the developers will probably expand the world, add in more Pals, and grow the story, too. But what we have here is already great, and features so many small details that you’ll be amazed at what you discover. It’s a little rough around the edges in places, but the blueprint and starting product are more than enough to keep you going.”
Take a look at Palword in action below.
The game garnered a similar response across the board, and has already sold a whopping 5,000,000 copies in just over three days – an enormous sales milestone. It also earnt the accolade of having the second highest concurrent player count of any paid game in the history of Steam. It’s impossible to ignore the other side of the story though. Players have stumbled across a variety of bugs – with Palword confessing to have over 50,000 reports to sift through – but perhaps more notably, it’s been hit by unconfirmed accusations of plagiarism and use of AI regarding some of its Pal designs.
While I’m imagining that the latter situation will continue to play out in the coming days, it hasn’t stopped players from diving in. For now, Palword is only available on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC – and I should add remains in Early Access. As such, over the weekend, many PlayStation owners will have been forlornly watching on, wondering if they’ll ever get to join in the fun.
The short answer is no for now, with the key phrase being ‘for now’. Palword studio PocketPair has expressed interest further down the line. In the game’s official FAQ, they wrote that they will “consider it during development”, so it stands the chance that devs could launch Palworld on PlayStation when the game departs Early Access. It’s admittedly a lengthy and uncertain wait, but it’s a spark of hope for PlayStation owners nonetheless.