Palworld sells 12 million copies on Steam alone, breaks Game Pass record for third-party game launches

Palworld continues to break records. The hit survival game from Japanese indie team Pocketpair has reached 12 million units sold on Steam in less than two weeks.

• Pocketpair announced a new milestone on X (formerly Twitter), meaning that Palworld has sold another 4 million copies on Steam in the last six days.
• In addition, the game reached 7 million players on Xbox, where it is also available on Game Pass (and PC). So its total audience has now surpassed 19 million users.

🎉Total number of players exceeds 19 million🎉

It’s been less than two weeks since #Palworld was released, thank you!

・Steam: 12 million~ copies
・Xbox: 7 million~ players

We will continue to prioritize fixing bugs!
Thank you for your continued support of #Pocketpair! pic.twitter.com/twgAeYVL07

— Palworld (@Palworld_EN) January 31, 2024

• Microsoft called Palworld the “biggest 3rd party Game Pass launch in history” and peaked at nearly 3 million daily active users on Xbox. The previous record holder was High on Life, which also became the biggest Game Pass release of 2022.
• “The response from fans has been tremendous and it’s incredible to see the millions of players around the world enjoying Palworld,” Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe told Xbox Wire.

The Early Access version of Palworld launched on January 19, quickly turning into a global phenomenon. Dubbed “Pokémon with guns,” it is an open world survival game, where players have to capture various creatures (Pals) while also building structures, gathering resources, crafting items, and exploring the land.

Palworld currently has a “Very Positive” rating on Steam, with 94% of the 154k user reviews being positive. It sold over 1 million copies in its first eight hours, crossing the 5 million mark in just three days. This is quite impressive for a game developed by a small indie studio, which has only one project — Early Access survival title Craftopia — behind its back.

Sales aside, Palworld also became one of the most played games on Steam ever. According to SteamDB, it peaked at over 2.1 million concurrent players. It is now behind only PUBG (3.25 million CCU), having topped other huge hits like Counter-Strike 2/CS:GO (1.8 million CCU), Lost Ark (1.3 million CCU), Dota 2 (1.29 million CCU), and Cyberpunk 2077 (1.054 million CCU).