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We are only in the first month of 2024 and already one of the biggest games of the year has been decided. The basic premise of Pokémon with guns was always going to be tantalizing, but the staggering success of Palworld has been much bigger than anyone could’ve expected. It has only launched in early access format, and in the three days since release Palworld has sold more copies than some of the PS4’s most popular exclusives over the exact same timeframe.
Palworld is part of Game Pass January 2024 so you do not even need to pay its early access fee to play if you own an Xbox or PC. The full Paldeck includes over 100 monsters, and there have been some complaints online about how much the monsters mirror the pocket monsters from Pokemon. Yet despite the controversy surrounding the similarities as well as reports of AI-generated art, the game is a massive triumph.
It has sold more copies in just three days than some of the biggest-ever games over the exact same timeframe, and this includes some of Sony’s fastest-selling PlayStation exclusives.
Palworld sells 5 million copies over three days
The official Palworld Twitter account reports that the game has sold over 5 million copies in just three days. Their tweet comes with a thank you to all the players as well as everyone creating art and clips for the game.
Selling 5 million copies in just three days is a massive feat. It has also gained the fifth-highest concurrent player count in Steam history. Over the weekend of its release, it gained a Steam concurrent player count of 1.29 million which is just behind Dota 2 (1.295 million), Lost Ark (1.33 million), Counter-Strike 2 (1.82 million), and PUBG (3.26 million).
Selling five million copies over three days is a remarkable figure that beats the following PS4 exclusives (per IGN):
- God of War 2018 (3.1 million copies in three days at launch)
- Marvel’s Spider-Man (3.3 million in three days at launch)
- The Last of Us Part 2 (4 million copies in three days at launch)
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 also sold 2.5 million copies in three days, meanwhile, God of War Ragnarok sold 5.1 million copies in its first week. While Palworld competes with and bests Sony’s fastest-selling exclusives, it is beaten by Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom which sold more than 10 million copies in just three days.
While Palworld has the benefit of launching on both Xbox and PC, it also has the disadvantage of launching on Xbox Game Pass which surpassed 33 million subscribers in 2023. The survival open-world Pokémon with guns is reportedly selling 86,000 copies per hour, so it’ll be interesting to see its sales figures after a full week of release. Palworld is not on PS5 at launch, but Sony loyalists are hoping it will join PlayStation after early access, but there’s been no word from Pocketpair.
If you are joining the game, check out our guides for how to catch Pals and craft Pal spheres, as well as how to breed Pals and hatch eggs.
