Several weeks after the massively successful launch of Palworld, the player numbers are starting to decline.
No one expected the huge success of Palworld at the end of January. The all-time peak of the monster survival game recorded a whopping 2.1 million concurrent players, a number that had only been reached by one other game on Steam. However, this peak could not be sustained for long.
Palworld Loses Pole Position To Counter-Strike 2 Again
Palworld's peak was reached on January 27, just a few days after the release. Within the next few days, the surprise hit lost two-thirds of its player base. In terms of absolute numbers, this is the biggest two-week drop-off ever seen on Steam. Of course, for this to be possible, a game has to reach so many players in the first place. Nevertheless, the downward trend seems set to continue.
Palworlds current 24-hour peak is just under 575,000 concurrent players. While most games would only dream of such numbers, compared to the 2.1 million, they look almost tiny. This puts Palworld back behind Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2, which have been maintaining their reliable numbers of 600k to 1 million for years now.
Palworld did not only take a hit in terms of player numbers.
In terms of revenue generated, it has now fallen to 4th place behind the current shooter hit Helldivers 2, Counter Strike 2, and PUBG: Battlegrounds.
Despite the declining numbers, Palworld still has a huge community that needs to be taken care of, and the developers are slowly running out of steam. Recently, they announced on Twitter/X that they are urgently looking for new employees.
In Palworld, there is still so much we want to do, but we are overwhelmingly short of staff!!! We are recruiting for all positions, but especially for planners and engineers! Experience with engines is not required, so if you are interested in creating completely new games, please apply!!
The next few weeks will show whether the team is up to the demands of their megahit and manages to maintain a stable player base.
What do you think, will Palworld be able to maintain a strong playerbase for the long run?