Palworld becomes only the sixth Steam game to reach one million concurrent players, beating Cyberpunk 2077 in the record books

The highest concurrent peak for any paid game in Steam’s history

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Palworldcontinues its record-breaking early access ascent, passing juggernauts such as Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam’s all-time charts.

The monster-taming, base-building survival hit rocketed to an estimated concurrent player peak of 1,200,000 according toSteam Database. That makes Palworld only the sixth game to ever surpass the one million threshold, putting it in league with absolute behemoths such as Cyberpunk 2077, Dota 2, MMO Lost Ark, Counter-Strike 2, and PUBG: Battlegrounds.

With its meteoric success still rising, Palworld now holds the record for the paid game with the highest concurrent player peak, exceeding even Cyberpunk 2077’s impressive numbers. The only games with bigger concurrent player peaks are all free-to-play - though it should be noted that PUBG’s number were still higher even before it made the free-to-play jump.

#Palworld has the highest concurrent player count of any paid game in the history of Steam! We can’t believe it!Thank you SO much to everyone. We really can not thank you enough. The team is hard at work making Palworld even better as we speak! #Pocketpair pic.twitter.com/tYHfHWLqM9January 21, 2024

Estimates on Steam fail to paint the full picture, though, since the game is also available on Xbox Series X|S, Game Pass, and theEpic GamesStore. Developer Pockpairannouncedthat the game had exceeded 1.3 million concurrent players across all platforms earlier today, althoughservers are still bucklingunder the weight of so many people with connectivity issues affectingPalworld multiplayer.

Palworld’s rise to the top, surprisingly, took no time at all when compared to the gradual word-of-mouth growth enjoyed by fellow craft-and-survive gems like Valheim. The game very quickly reached an impressive200,000 peak in mere hours, only toquadruple that numberwithin the next day. It alsosold two million copiesin just 24 hours, all while retaining positive user reviews on Steam.

For those who have been caught off guard, Palworld’s eye-catching premise promised to be a monster-taming game where the off-brand Pokemon wield machineguns and where you can force all your Pals into factory work. It leans extra hard into that edgy personality, even allowing players tocapture other humans and sell their parts on the black market, to both the delight and horror of many.

Seeing what all the hype is about? Check outhow to capture Pals in Palworldand master thePalworld types chartfor the edge in combat.

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Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.

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