'Palworld' Roadmap Revealed—Huge Upgrades Are Coming

Indie game Palworld is the biggest thing in gaming right this moment, as the indie survival game—widely described as “Pokémon with guns,” both with love and derision—has sold seven million copies in less than a week while dominating gamers’ mindshare.

But what’s next? Palworld has some bugs and issues, and has struggled under the weight of historic demand, plus the “early access” nature of the release suggests that the PC and Xbox game is very much a work in progress.

Luckily, developer Pocketpair released a first look at the roadmap early Wednesday, pointing to both short-term fixes along with larger-scale ambitions to expand upon the game and deliver a smoother, more robust game experience. Here’s what to expect.

Squashing bugs

Before Palworld gets any bigger, Palworld needs to make sure it’s stable and running smoothly. That’s why bug fixes and other improvements are first up for the team.

“Sales have far exceeded the development team’s expectations, and we are currently experiencing many problems due to excessive access congestion, among other challenges,” the developer wrote Tuesday. “We will prioritize improving this issue first, and then move on to implementing new in-game features.”

According to Pocketpair, “addressing critical issues” is the biggest focus for now. There could be some wonkiness within the game as these fixes go live, including potential “rollbacks” to the world date and endless loading screens, but hopefully they’re short-lived annoyances.

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Nintendo probably isn’t ever going to fulfill gamers’ fever dreams of high-powered weaponry, but an indie developer did just that on Friday with the early access launch of Palworld on PC and Xbox. And it has quickly taken the gaming world by storm. Palworld’s creatures look like Pokémon at a glance, but the game plays more like a survival game like Ark: Survival Evolved and Minecraft—or perhaps the latest Legend of Zelda games. That blend of cute monsters and tougher play mechanics has already a...

Palworld’s team also plans to enhance the key configuration and improve the AI of the Pokémon-like creatures, called Pals.

New features

After those bits are dealt with, Palworld will get some new features. Expect a player-vs-player (PvP) mode, raid bosses as “endgame content,” and a Pal Arena that lets you battle the colorful monsters. In other words, Palworld isn’t shying away from the Pokémon comparisons.

Also on the horizon are additions like new creatures, islands, bosses, and in-game tech, tweaks to the building model, and the ability to transfer between servers and migrate your data.

Xbox enhancements

The Palworld phenomenon appears largely centered on the PC version of the game for now, but it’s also on Xbox—and available to Xbox Game Pass subscribers. Unfortunately, Xbox players have reported some missing features, making it seem even more like a second-class version of the game compared to PC.

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Palworld launched on January 19, and since then has already sold more than six million copies, according to developer Pocketpair. It's logged more than a million concurrent players on Steam alone, with over 300,000 viewers watching Palworld streams on Twitch. In other words, this PC and Xbox indie game is an enormous smash. A game hasn’t captured this much attention this quickly since the battle royale shooter craze of 2017, when PUBG and Fortnite collectively captured worldwide attention. And t...

Pocketpair says that “various Xbox feature improvements” are on the roadmap, though it’s unclear whether the versions will eventually reach full feature parity. The studio also plans to add cross-play support between the Steam and Xbox versions of the game, bringing together the community for one combined experience.

No timeline has been set for any of Palworld’s upgrades and improvements, but at least players now know that fixes and feature additions are on the horizon.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.