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lead=yes is an upcoming action-adventure, Survival game, and monster-taming game created and published by Japanese developer Pocketpair. The game is set in an open world populated with animal-like creatures called "Pals", which players can battle and capture to use for base building, traversal, and combat. Players may also assign the Pals to bases where they will automatically complete tasks for the player. Palworld can be played either solo or online with up to 32 players on one server. It was announced in 2021 and launched through early access for Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in January 2024, and for the PlayStation 5 in September 2024.
The game's comedic premise, which involves using and equipping Pals with them, has earned it the nickname " Pokémon with guns". Other elements, such as using Pals for food or as manual labor in mines and factories, have also garnered a mixed reaction, with praise for its gameplay, content, and Satire premise, but criticism for its reliance on shock humor and use of unoriginal designs and mechanics.
The islands are inhabited by 187 different types of creatures called Pals, which players directly engage in combat with to weaken and then capture using "Pal Spheres". Pals can also be bought on the black market through non-player characters or traded with other players. After obtaining Pals, they can be summoned to battle or stationed at bases to assist with tasks such as scavenging, crafting, and cooking depending on their type. Each Pal has a Partner Skill, allowing further utility by using them as weapons or mounts.
The game's bosses include various factions, such as the Rayne Syndicate, the Free Pal Alliance liberation movement, the Brothers of the Eternal Pyre, the Palpagos Islands Defense Force, and the Pal Genetic Research Unit. These factions are led by powerful Pal trainers who reside in towers across the islands and are the game's main boss battles. The factions include human NPCs who occasionally spawn in the world, either patrolling or battling each other, who are hostile to the player and can fight them with weapons. The game features a wanted level system; if the player commits a crime, usually against humans, other human NPCs will become hostile and defense force troopers will spawn to attack them until they are killed or evade their pursuers.
The game uses more original assets than Craftopia, which proved to be challenging for the team. Early in development, it was decided to move Palworld from Unity, which powered Pocketpair's earlier projects, to Unreal Engine 4, as they decided it was more suitable for heavier open-world games. It was first planned for release in 2022, but the deadline was extended to August 2023 as the scope of the project grew and the company hired more staff, and then once again to support dedicated servers on launch. When early access began, the game was estimated to be 60% complete.
In total, the budget exceeded 1 billion yen, and the company hired over 40 additional employees. The game's character animator was hired, despite having no prior industry experience, after Takuro Mizobe reached out to a hobbyist animator on YouTube who had been uploading combat animation videos and Girls' Frontline fan content. The game's director applied during a Twitter recruitment run despite already lining up for a position at NetEase. The main character designer for the Pals was initially rejected during an October 2020 recruitment drive for illustrators, but was hired when she reapplied in February 2021.
Palworld was released on January 19, 2024, through Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview, and is available with Game Pass from day one. The game is expected to remain in early access until 2026. Planned features for future updates include PvP modes, guild raids, and cross-server Pal trading. On June 10, 2024, it was announced that the game would be released in early access for macOS later that year. On June 24, 2024, it was teased to be released on PlayStation 5. Pocketpair announced the first major expansion to be released on June 27, 2024, which includes new Pals, a new island called Sakurajima, and other new content. On September 25, 2024, the PlayStation 5 version of the game was released. On December 23, 2024, the production team released a major update Feybreak Island. On March 19, 2025 Palworld Update 0.5.0 added crossplay across all platforms.
In Brazil, the game's publicity was boosted due to the pronunciation of pal being similar to pau in Portuguese. Pau can mean 'wood' but is also sexual slang for penis. Both players and journalists made various puns when discussing the game and the Pals due to this double meaning.
Conversely, Rock Paper Shotgun and PC Gamer criticized Palworld for relying too heavily on shock humor about animal abuse and sweatshop labor in its gameplay, which PC Gamer derided as "mid-2000s Newgrounds edgelord" and "over-committing to the bit", with Rock Paper Shotgun arguing the gameplay mechanics and presentation of Pals fundamentally misunderstood the meanings and appeal behind Pokémon and the monster-catching genre. It also attracted some criticism for the unoriginal designs of Pals and mechanics lifted from other titles, which VG247 thought undermined a game "worth admiring".
Palworld sold over one million copies in its first eight hours of early access on January 19, 2024, which rose to two million copies within the first 24 hours, three million copies within the first 40 hours, five million copies by day 3, six million by day 4, seven million by day 5, and eight million by day 6. On January 24, 2024, it reached over 2,000,000 concurrent players on Steam, becoming the first game since to achieve this feat. The high player count led to server issues. On January 27, Palworld recorded 2,101,867 concurrent players on Steam. By February 1, the game sold 12 million copies on Steam and had reached 7 million players on Xbox. According to Microsoft, the game was the most-played 3rd party release on Xbox Game Pass, reaching a peak of almost 3 million daily active players on the Xbox platform. As of February 22, 2024, the game sold 15 million copies on Steam and had reached 10 million players on Xbox.
However, by February 11, the game reportedly faced the largest two-week player drop on Steam - down from its peak concurrent player count of 2,101,867 to about 750,000 concurrent players. In response to those reports, Pocketpair community manager Bucky wrote on Twitter "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." He also wrote "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 two when you're ready."
As of February 2025, Palworld has attracted over 32 million players across all platforms, including PC via Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation 5.
| 2024 | Golden Joystick Awards | Best Early Access Game | ||
| The Steam Awards | Better With Friends |
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair for infringement of patent rights in the Tokyo District Court on September 18, 2024. Pocketpair responded to the lawsuit the same day, expressing disappointment that resources would have to be allocated to the lawsuit and that they were currently unaware of what patents had been infringed upon. In December, Nintendo filed a series of patents in the United States designed to challenge Pocketpair in court there as well. In February 2025, one of the 23 patents was approved while the rest were rejected.
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