Palworld updates coming for broken multiplayer, inaccessible servers and save data bugs

When I innocently went on holiday on Thursday evening, Palworld was that flagrant cash-in survival game where you can make Pokemon - sorry, Pals - shoot guns and work on an assembly line. As of this morning, it's among the most-played games in the world, one of just six to exceed one million concurrent players on Steam. Right now, it's doing almost twice the numbers of Steam's usual chart-topper Counter-Strike 2. We have entered the Pal Age, it seems - but how long will the feeding frenzy last? How much is owing to it releasing during the quiet time of year with a meme-ish premise, while capitalising on pent-up demand for a proper PC version of Nintendo's monster-catching series? Much will depend, I think, on how quickly developers Pocketpair can update it and stay ahead of the usual early access game avalanche of community requests and complaints.

Palworld appears to be one of the more watertight early access releases. I spent a few hours merrily mugging and enslaving cartoon sheep and cats over the weekend, and found the performance to be smooth with few obvious glitches. That said, the developers have acknowledged that Palworld has some "serious bugs" which they are racing to fix.

"Currently, we have received over 50,000 inquiries," reads the social media post in question. "We sincerely apologize for the delay in response from our support team.

"The development team is aware of serious bugs that are occurring, such as being unable to enter servers, unable to play multiplayer, and losing saved data, and are currently working on fixing them," it goes on. "We will share information about the fixes for these issues as soon as possible."

The developers add "that save data from singleplayer and co-op may be able to be restored", as per this Google doc guide.

Among the bigger current known glitches are an issue with the Memory Reset Drug, which is designed to reset your status, but can also reduce your ability to capture the game's monsters, aka your "capturing power".

"Currently, using the item 'Memory Reset Drug' that resets the player's status may reduce the player's capture power and make it impossible to recover," Pocketpair's Kei toldplayers on Discord (thanks, PCGN).

"We are currently investigating this issue, so we apologise for the inconvenience, but please refrain from using it until the investigation/correction is complete."

If you're still wondering whether to join the proceedings and get busy transforming PokeNots into sorrowful factory workers, know that there may be a few differences between the Steam and Microsoft Store/Game Pass versions. As reported by Windows Central, there have been delays bringing certain Palworld features and fixes to Microsoft Store due to Microsoft's certification process.

If you're already playing the game on either platform, and want help optimising your menagerie/workforce, Kiera's written a list of the best Palworld pals.

My thoughts on Palworld, at the time of writing? Well, I'm slightly more enamoured of the game than Katharine - in her early impressions piece on Friday, she called it "as soulless and cynical as they come". I quite enjoy watching Pals trundle about my base, interacting with the fixtures as their skills and traits dictate. But as somebody who dislikes games about dead-eyed resource extraction and crafting, I'm not going to put it on my GOTY 2024 list anytime soon. I find the discussion around Palworld more intriguing than the game. In brief: 1) what distinguishes a rip-off from actual copyright infringement, and 2) what level of simulated animal abuse is "acceptable" in a game such as this?