While I was just talking about Helldivers 2 and its inability to retain players, on the suggestion of some readers, I took a look at how another game that blew up during the same time period, Palworld, is doing right now.
The answer? After its just-released “Sakurajima” update, the answer is quite well, as the new sizable addition to the game has just produced playercount numbers that are the best the game has seen in three months, or its lifespan since its blockbuster release.
Palworld just broke past a previous high in April of 128,000 concurrent players, and is now surpassing some of the larger days in March, now that it’s the weekend and more people are playing. If it keeps increasing it could surpass a few more days that month, though I doubt it will reach late February numbers of 250,000+.
I got a lot of flak for previously documenting the game’s fall from its highs, but I said it was a live game back then, and I maintain that now. In addition to frequent patches, it’s had one major update before this, and now a significant, Genshin Impact-style expansion to add to the map and unleash a ton of new content. Such as:
- An entirely new island
- Many new Pals and subspecies of Pals
- A new raid and hard-mode boss
- An enemy oil rig base to invade
- More buildings
- New level cap
- Dedicated servers for Xbox.
It’s a good amount of content and it definitely seems to have reinvigorated players. In relation to what I was just talking about with Helldivers 2, that game has not announced anything like a major expansion, and has had no success reversing playercount declines. But this true expansion from Palworld has clearly regenerated a ton of interest.
It is absolutely impossible Palworld will ever reach its second-most-played-game-ever Steam highs of 2.1 million concurrents. That was positively nuts and a viral spread that cannot be replicated. But if it continues to produce significant content updates and expansions like this, it may remain healthy for a long while. However, unlike say, Genshin Impact, with no microtransactions this means no ongoing revenue, only continued new game sales, No Man’s Sky style. But its nice to see it surging, as I had a lot of fun with it back at launch. Maybe if I can put down Shadow of the Erdtree, I’ll give it a chance.
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