Forthcoming Palworld updates will add PvP multiplayer arenas, raid bosses, Xbox feature improvements, Steam-Xbox crossplay, extra islands, server transfers, new Pals and new technologies, according to an early access roadmap just released by developers Pocketpair. The monster-catching survival sim continues to set concurrent play records on Steam, and Pocketpair are presently focussed on fixing bugs. Beyond that, though, the sky appears to be the limit, as you might expect of a game that shifted a million copies in eight hours. In particular, Pocketpair seem markedly more confident about the odds of adding PvP to the game, having downplayed the idea in interviews before release.
All that’s from this Xitter post, in which the developers thank players for bearing with them as they sort out the early access build’s more significant glitches. “Sales have far exceeded the development team’s expectations, and we are currently experiencing many problems due to excessive access congestion, among other challenges,” it reads. “We will prioritize improving this issue first, and then move on to implementing new in-game features.”
Right now, the developers are trying to patch the more egregious bugs, including an endless loading screen issue and the rolling back of your world date. After that, they’ll get started on “key configuration improvements” and improvements to base Pal AI and pathing. I’ve encountered a few pathing issues myself – one of my Chikipis keeps getting stuck under the house, bless him.
Once the bigger technical flaws and quality-of-life rejigs have been addressed, Pocketpair will start thinking about larger additions to the game. Here’s their current to-do list, which may not be written in order of priority:
PvP
Raid Bosses (End-Game Content)
Pal Arena (PvP for Pals)
Steam-Xbox Crossplay
Various Xbox Feature Improvements
Server Transfers and Migrations
Improvements to the Building System
New islands, Pals, Bosses, and Technologies
In an Automaton interview from before Palworld’s launch, Pocketpair’s CEO Takuro Mizobe estimated that the survival sim is about “about 60% complete”. He added that “the important points that remain are how we’re going to implement PvP and to what extent we’re going to release new content. We’re also prepared to add new game functions, so we will observe user reactions and decide what to prioritize based on what everyone wants.”
At the time of that interview, Mizobe wasn’t sure about the introduction of competitive multiplayer. “PvP is really difficult,” he explained. “First of all, we need to think about why we are introducing PvP to Palworld. To begin with, there are many other games that offer a fun PvP experience, so we need to make sure that there is a reason for Palworld players to play PvP. Of course, using Pals you caught in battle is one unique point, but only games that give players a good reason to play can survive in the long term.
“In this sense, I think it’s a very harsh territory,” Mizobe continued. “This is why PocketPair is not very optimistic about PvP. I said earlier that we have created a great game, but with PvP games, you can’t know if you’ve failed or succeeded until the very end. I think that our chances of success are below 10%. That’s how high the hurdle is to succeed in PvP.
Before launch, Pocketpair were still working out whether PvP would involve Pals fighting alone or alongside their human owners/abusers, and whether dust-ups would take place across the entire map or in an arena. “In the case of the arena format, I think that real-time action battles would be the first thing that users would imagine,” Mizobe said. “However, we are also considering an asynchronous battle pattern in which pals fight each other automatically. There are a lot of technical details to be discussed, but we are also considering a format in which pals are registered in the arena and users can freely choose to fight, which would lower the barrier to entry and allow more casual PvP.”
The tweet above confirms that Palworld PvP will be arena-based, not map-wide. If you’re salivating at the prospect of beating up a friend’s beloved Lovander, it might be worth browsing our list of Palworld’s best Pals for potential gladiator candidates. Me, I’m a little disappointed that PvP will be sealed away from the rest of the map, inasmuch as I’d love to invade other people’s worlds and be an obnoxious virtual animal rights activist, smashing other people’s bases and liberating their Pals. Come on, there’s definitely a diary feature in this. Perhaps I can co-author it with PETA.
If you somehow missed the launch of Palworld, which is now one of the world’s most-played games, here’s Katharine’s deeply unimpressed launch verdict ahead of our full review, and here’s my chat with a lawyer about whether the game breaks Pokémon’s copyright.
