Both ‘Palworld’ And ‘Palworld 1.0’ Are In Steam’s Best-Ever Playercount List

Palworld was one of the wildest gaming stories I can remember covering when it rocketed to 2.1 million concurrent players on Steam alone shortly after launch, today remaining the third-highest in the history of the platform. The virality was something we had not seen since another, adjacent type of game, Pokémon GO, which would eventually prove to be quite the IP battle.

Now, Palworld is doing something incredible. After 2.5 years in Early Access, Palworld has now launched its 1.0 version, the “true” release of the game that collects a number of updates over the past few years and adds its biggest patch in history for the launch. While the game is obviously not going to reach 2.1 million again, it has now hit 725,000 concurrent players on Steam this weekend, with numbers boosted by Asian markets during the morning in the US here.

That 725,000 figure means that the second launch of Palworld is now inside the top 15 of Steam launch concurrent peaks ever. To date, there has never been a similar situation of a “relaunch’ hitting a figure like that, though a few expansions may count for forever-hits like PUBG. CSGO also sort of just morphed into its sequel, CS2. Here’s the top 15 list, with Palworld 1.0, meaning the game is on there twice:

1. PUBG – 3.2 million
2. Black Myth: Wukong – 2.4 million
3. Palworld – 2.1 million
4. Counter-Strike 2 – 1.8 million
5. Monster Hunter: Wilds – 1.38 million
6. Lost Ark – 1.32 million
7. Dota 2 – 1.29 million
8. Cyberpunk 2077 – 1.05 million
9. Elden Ring – 953,000
10. Banana – 917,000
11. New World: Aeternum – 913,000
12. Hogwarts Legacy – 879,000
13. Baldur’s Gate 3 – 875,000
14. Battlefield 6 – 745,000
15. Palworld 1.0 – 725,000