Palworld Overtakes Counter-Strike to Become the Second Most-Played Game Ever on Steam

23.01.2024 - 15:11 / ign.com

Palworld’s astonishing launch success has grown further: it’s now the second most-popular game ever on Steam.

Palworld posted an incredible 1,853,216 concurrent players on Steam today, January 23, a figure that sees Pocketpair’s controversial 'Pokémon with guns' crafting and survival game overtake Valve’s own Counter-Strike, according to SteamDB.

Palworld, then, is second only to PUBG, whose remarkable Steam concurrents peak of 3,257,248 was set during the game’s glory days amid the battle royale boom.

It seems unlikely that Palworld will hit those heights, although its increasing sales success suggests a bigger concurrents peak is still to come. And let’s not forget Palworld launched in early access form, where Pocketpair said it will remain for a year.

Meanwhile, Pocketpair said Palworld had sold six million copies in just four days. It launched on January 19 across Xbox consoles and PC via Steam and Windows. It also launched day-and-date on Game Pass.

"Thank you for playing the game even though it is a weekday!" a tweet from Pocketpair said. "The team is working hard to ensure that you can enjoy the game even more comfortably."

Palworld is already one of the biggest game launches ever, but it’s also one of the most controversial. Pocketpair has said its staff have received death threats amid Pokémon "rip-off" claims, and Nintendo moved quickly to remove an eye-catching Pokémon mod. Palworld’s enormous launch has seen its servers struggle, too.

Check out IGN’s Palworld Early Access Review in Progress to find out what we thought.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].