Palworld Lost 70% Of Its Playerbase And It Makes Sense

In just a few short weeks, "Palworld" has experienced the kind of indie success story that most developers dream about when they get into the video game business. Since its debut on January 26, 2024, Pocketpair's crafting and survival game has seen a meteoric rise in popularity on both Steam and Xbox Game Pass. What began as morbid curiosity about a game billed as "Pokémon with guns" has quickly blossomed into a dedicated player community complete with mods, private role-playing servers, and lore specialists trying to piece together the game's bizarre storyline. However, the surprise hit has also seen its fair share of detractors — and those people may not be too terribly surprised when they learn that "Palworld" has experienced a significant drop in its playerbase.

A few days after the game launched in early access, it hit an all-time peak of 2,101,867 players, making it one of the most successful games in the platform's history. "Palworld" surpassed "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" and began to zero in on the concurrent player record held by "PUBG" when its playerbase began to steadily decline. At the time of this writing on February 13, "Palworld" currently has just over 356,000 players in the game on Steam, with a 24-hour peak of 574,423 players. In other words, the game has experienced a drop of roughly 1.5 million players. That's roughly 70% of the game's peak playerbase, and the biggest two-week drop ever experienced by a game on Steam. Despite the game's ardent fanbase, it actually makes perfect sense that "Palworld" is experiencing this kind of decline.

First, it's worth looking at the circumstances that made "Palworld" into a sensation right out of the gate. "Palworld" hit the scene in January with a perfect storm of hype. It benefitted from having a bizarre hook — the controversy surrounding its character designs and premise — and it released at a time when there wasn't another big multiplayer release in the same window. Although new entries in the "Like A Dragon" and "Tekken" series both released in the same timeframe, those two franchises have carved out their own niche in the industry. The folks who love them really love them, but they're not exactly massive go-to franchises for streamers looking to check out the latest craze on Steam. On the other hand, the controversy and curiosity surrounding "Palworld" meant that just about every streamer looking to boost their numbers gave "Palworld" a go.

Since that momentous weekend, "Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League" pretty much came and went, and now "Helldivers 2" is taking up a great deal of players' time. Despite server issues at launch, Arrowhead Studios' third-person multiplayer shooter has already exceeded Sony's sales expectations and is drawing crowds on Twitch — which brings us to the other reason why "Palworld" has dropped off a significant amount.

While there are still no doubt a great number of players who take the game seriously and make a point of logging in to check on their base every day, there are also plenty of gamers for whom "Palworld" was a mere curiosity. The title's reasonable $27 price point was a small cost to pay for the opportunity to join in on a game that dominated so much of the conversation at its launch. Some of these already feel that the initial novelty has faded, with some going so far as to call "Palworld" the gaming equivalent of "a soup du jour." Some see the game as a passing fad that simply passed a little quicker than expected.

The numbers don't support that theory just yet, however. At the end of the day, the game's player count is still undeniably impressive, even with the drop off from previous weeks. "Palworld" just had a much bigger debut than many other early access games. As one player on the Steam forums said, "A decrease in activity and players does not mean the game is dead, it just means the game launch hype has settled down." 

Many of those lapsed players will no doubt swing back around in the future to check out various content updates. Pocketpair has an extensive roadmap planned out for "Palworld," so it wouldn't be too much of a surprise to see the game's playerbase surge again in the near future. The developer has also shifted its resources toward strengthening the game's servers, so it seems like Pocketpair also expects "Palworld" to be around (and popular) for quite some time.