'Pokemon With Guns' Game Shoots to the Top of the Steam Charts

Palworld has climbed to the top of the Steam charts mere hours after its early access launch, selling over 1 million copies in the process. Palworld is often described as Pokemon with guns, and this unique take on a popular concept has made many gamers curious to try it.

Ever since Palworld was announced by Pocketpair Games in 2021, it has been a highly-anticipated game. This multiplayer open-world survival game mixes collecting over 100 different Pokemon-like creatures with survival mechanics and base-building. The real twist, however, is how Palworld offers a Team Rocket-like experience, allowing gamers to be the villains. For example, they can exploit their Pals for hard labor and give some of them guns to kill enemies.

Now, Palworld has been released, and it’s quite successful on Steam, despite still being in early access. According to its developers, Palworld sold over a million copies in only eight hours. Right now, Palworld appears as the top seller on Steam, surpassing popular titles like Warframe, Counter-Strike 2, and Baldur’s Gate 3. The game is also the fourth game with the most concurrent players right now with 367,000 trying it out. The only Steam games with more players than Palworld at the time of this writing are CS2, Dota 2, and PUBG. It's likely that it will have even more players during the weekend.

The success of the game on Steam is even more incredible considering that Palworld is available on Xbox Game Pass right now, as subscribers gain access to the game without needing to purchase it. Microsoft does not disclose the number of people playing on Game Pass, though, so it’s not as easy to tell how popular Palworld is on Xbox.

What remains to be seen is whether Palworld will continue to be such a popular game after the initial hype goes down. Several so-called Pokemon clones have been released in recent years, with vastly distinct levels of popularity when compared to each other. Palworld's longevity will depend on whether its updates are enough to