In 20 Years, ‘Palworld’ Is Almost Steam’s Most Popular Game. Almost.

Palworld is a breakout success—truly, in every sense of the word. For years, gamers have speculated about Pocketpair’s upcoming Pokémon-with-guns game, a phrase I’m admittedly tired of writing. For you see, Palworld is more than just a Pokémon clone.

It’s an open-world survival game with Pokémon-like characters. That’s a sizable enough difference to, apparently, avoid a lawsuit from Nintendo, which is good news for Pocketpair, because right now, Palworld is dominating Steam. According to SteamDB’s Steam Charts, Palworld has reached a higher historical peak player count than Dota 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, Baludr’s Gate 3, Apex Legends, Among Us, and Counter-Strike 2 / Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Additionally, based on current players and Steam’s peak 24 hour player count, Palworld is the most popular game on Steam at the moment. At the time of this article’s writing, Palworld has approximately 1 million users on Steam alone, easily surpassing Counter-Strike 2’s 753,000 gamers.

But there’s one game that, historically, was far more popular than Palworld. By a mile. And I highly suspect Palworld won’t dethrone Steam’s most popular game of all time quite yet.

Is Palworld Steam’s most popular game?

Palworld currently has an all-time peak for 1.8 million players, which the game just reached earlier today. But Palworld still can’t beat the all-time record set by PUBG: Battlegrounds. That’s right, Krafton’s multiplayer battle royale game dominated Steam when it launched out of Steam Early Access, reaching a 3.2 million peak in players in January 2018.

Just a year prior, in March 2017, PUBG took the gaming world by storm. Originally called PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the game throws players into an enormous island with an ever-closing circle. Players must find a way to survive as the last person or squad standing, scavenging for weapons along the way. Highly realistic in terms of guns and aesthetic, PUBG introduced the “battle royale” multiplayer genre to gamers everywhere, and it quickly became a viral hit.

Fortnite: Battle Royale dropped several months later after PUBG’s early access debut, surpassing the original game that brought battle royale combat to the mainstream. Games like Apex Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone soon followed in PUBG’s footsteps. But for a time, PUBG was king on Steam. Today, the game only reached a peak player count of 518 thousand in the past 24 hours, with just 189 thousand players online at the moment.

For sure, that still makes PUBG: Battlegrounds one of the most popular games on Steam, but the game has generally declined in popularity over the years compared to its earlier highs. Other battle royale titles have built off its original design, snatching PUBG fans away in the process. But PUBG can still rest easy, knowing it still has the highest player count ever in Steam’s history.

At least for now. Who knows what Palworld will bring as time goes on?

(featured image: Pocketpair)