The open-world survival crafting experience Palworld absolutely exploded in popularity in 2024 when it launched into early access. It sold five million copies within three days on PC and Xbox, and touted having over 25 million players within a month. Over a year of content updates later, developer Pocketpair is now planning its 1.0 launch, and there will be a shift in how it approaches content updates in the near future because of that.
The studio shared a developer update today, saying that after five major updates to Palworld, it is now at a crossroads, needing to decide how it tackles the future of the experience.
"While we have a lot of ideas for where we want to take Palworld, we also need to start thinking about Palworld 1.0," says Pocketpair Communications Director and Publishing Manager John Buckley. "Beyond just adding new content, there’s a lot of cleanup that needs to be done before Palworld can exit Early Access."
Per the studio, it recognizes the amount of "quirks and jank" present inside Palworld right now and that it needs a lot of cleanup before being ready for a 1.0 release. "We think taking the time now to fix those problems will ultimately lead to a better game," says Buckley.
This shift means that Palworld content updates will slow down, with the remainder of 2025 being slower than usual. The announced Palworld Winter update is also said to be smaller than the Feybreak content drop. However, the 1.0 update is slated to have a huge amount of content, as it brings the game out of early access.
"Development of Palworld is not scaling back," Buckley adds. "Quite the opposite, Palworld 1.0 will be a major milestone for us and we have a truly massive amount of content planned for the 1.0 update. Rather than rushing it we believe that laying the foundation now will lead to a better game in the end."
Pocketpair plans to launch Palworld out of early access and launch the full game sometime in 2026. The game is available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5, as well as Game Pass subscription platforms.