Hannan Mundia 
Palworld launched in early access and immediately became one of the most-played games in the world but when is the game’s full release coming?
Despite relatively limited marketing before its launch, Pocketpair’s survival open-world game Palworld has become an instant hit. The “Pokemon knockoff” climbed the Steam charts and soared well past 1.5 million concurrent players, a feat that few games have been able to match. All this has come even though it’s still an early access release.
With Palworld’s sudden launch and the fact that some platforms didn’t get the game yet, there is confusion about how players can access Palworld’s early access. Many fans facing issues with the early access version wonder when the game’s full version will be released.
How to get Palworld early access on PC
Palworld can be bought from Steam for $29.99 or played with an Xbox Game Pass subscription on PC.
Palworld was added to the Game Pass catalog on the same day as the early access release date, January 19, 2024. It has been a huge hit on Steam in particular, surpassing the best numbers of games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and even topping the concurrent player charts over Counter-Strike 2.
Interestingly, according to Pocketpair community manager, the Steam and Xbox versions of Palworld are two different versions of the game. Because of this, the Steam version has features and fixes that are missing in the Xbox version. However, this will likely change when Palworld gets crossplay, as the two versions would have to be in union for a seamless crossplay experience but it is unclear whether this will arrive during early access or not until after the full release.
How to get Palworld early access on Xbox
Fans can buy Palworld on the Xbox store for $29.99 or play the game with an Xbox Game Pass subscription. The game is playable on both Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
The Xbox version of Palworld doesn’t have dedicated servers, resulting in the maximum number of joinable players in a session being four instead of the 32-player limit in the Steam version. When asked about Xbox’s lack of dedicated servers in the developer Discord server, Pocketpair stated that it wasn’t the studio’s decision and that it “is quite difficult to negotiate at this time.”
Pocketpair has publicly discussed Xbox’s lack of promptness when implementing fixes and patches. The company stated that updates that were shipped on Steam days ago were still in limbo on Xbox.
When is Palworld’s full release date?
It is currently unknown when Palworld will leave early access and when the full version will be released.
When asked about the early access duration of Palworld, the developers stated that it would remain in early access “for at least one year.” During this time, the developers promise to polish the game’s core mechanics while steadily introducing improvements.
Pocketpair noted that the early access period could be extended “depending on the progress of development.” It’s unclear how the unexpected number of people playing the game and Palworld’s AI controversy will affect the survival game’s development and roadmap.
