Over the past three years we’ve been covering the development of Palworld, a multiplayer survival sandbox from developer Pocketpair that was first announced in 2021. The game involves players finding and capturing the titular Pals for use in combat and labor, all with an insane-looking mish-mash of cutesy characters and brutal activities – its second trailer showed adorable monsters wielding massive weapons, working in sweatshops, and gleefully walking into bomb traps.
It was first eyeing a 2022 release, but that obviously didn’t happen. Well, now we have a firm calendar release date, or at least an early access release date: Friday, January 19th. The game will be $30 on Steam and will also be available as part of Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, though cross-play between platforms isn’t going to be available at launch.
The FAQ also confirms that Palworld will be a co-op PvE game, with PvP, more areas, and more Pals to be added during development; there are no plans for a PS5 launch right now, but the studio will consider it, and controller support is on the way too. The game can also be played in single-player and offline, though characters from a single-player game can’t be ported over to a multiplayer game unless that player is hosting an online game. On the subject of multiplayer, online play is possible either with three friends via private invitation or with provided tools to host a dedicated server that can fit as many as 32 players.
The announcement came with a snazzy new trailer full of cinematic looks and gameplay highlights, which can be watched below. The game can otherwise be wishlisted on Steam right now if players so choose.
