After roughly two and a half years of dominating the Early Access conversation, Pocketpair’s open-world survival phenomenon Palworld officially launched its 1.0 version on July 10, 2026.
If anyone thought the hype surrounding the infamous “Pokémon with guns” title had quieted down, the launch weekend numbers have firmly proven otherwise.
Within mere hours of the full-release update going live, concurrent player numbers on Steam rapidly surged, blasting past 470,000 active players and positioning it comfortably as the fourth most-played game on the entire platform. Trailing only free-to-play powerhouses like Counter-Strike 2 and PUBG.
That’s literally an incredible feat, almost unheard of in modern gaming. And let’s not forget the legal battle and issues Palworld faces with Nintendo. You would think that the name would be besmirched, and yet, it seems that Palworld is truly here to stay. Making history just seems to be the norm for these guys,
A Tenfold Traffic Spike
For context, Palworld has spent the last year maintaining a highly respectable, steady baseline of 30,000 to 70,000 daily players on Steam.
The 1.0 launch multiplied that community presence more than tenfold overnight.
While it might not instantly recreate the anomalous, once-in-a-generation peak of 2.1 million concurrent players from its initial January 2024 early-access debut, hitting nearly half a million active players for a premium survival title is incredibly rare air.
On top of the pure player volume, critical reception has been overwhelmingly warm. The 1.0 release is sitting at a stellar 96% positive review score on Steam, with many community reviews praising Pocketpair for expanding and polishing their original concept well beyond the initial internet memes.
What’s Fuelling the Resurgence?
Pocketpair delivered what many are calling a “short story’s worth” of content updates to mark the graduation from Early Access.
The 1.0 changelog spans massive additions across every core mechanic:
The World Tree Unlocked: The massive landmark, visible from across the map but previously walled off behind an impassable red forcefield, is finally accessible as the game’s definitive, high-stakes endgame narrative zone.
Sunreach Sky Islands: A completely new floating archipelago suspended above the Palpagos Islands, offering unique traversal mechanics via the newly introduced Wing Pack.
72 New Pals: The total roster grows to 287 with the addition of 47 brand-new Pal species alongside 25 specialised elemental variants.
Expanded Progression: The level cap has officially shifted from 65 up to 80, alongside new advanced weapon tiers and survival mechanics like Base Mutations.
The Platform Split
Alongside its explosive success on Steam, Palworld 1.0 also dropped as a day-one launch title on Xbox Game Pass (both Console and PC) and launched simultaneously on PlayStation 5, pushing its lifetime player count past an astronomical 40 million players globally.
With two entirely new landmasses to colonise and the long-simmering legal shadow of Nintendo’s patent lawsuit reportedly settling into minor financial background noise, Palworld’s full launch cements it as an enduring titan of the multiplayer survival genre.
Palworld 1.0
It’s such an exciting time, and whilst we’ve not had chance to actually get started again. It’s downloaded on the PC and the Steam Deck, and ready to go.
We’ll be reviewing it as a new game, and assessing Steam Deck performance, too. There’s a lot to look at and play, but we’ll be carving-out some time especially for Palworld now it’s in full release. No doubt it’s changed significantly since we last played.
Starting from scratch feels like the most sensible thing to do here, and getting properly established with the game 2 years in feels odd, but almost exactly what we want right now,
Are you diving back into the Palpagos Islands this week? Let us know what you think of the 1.0 expansion in the comments below.
