Palworld has taken off—with a huge player count that's set Steam records, its own controversies surrounding unfortunate game mechanics, and AI worries. Now it has an updated roadmap, as posted to the game's official Discord server this morning.
The top priority for developer Pocketpair appears to be bug fixes, like stopping your save rolling itself back—or the game hiccuping on loading screens. Improvements to the AI and pathing of Pals have been promised, which is neat.
I took the game for a spin yesterday, and ran into a problem where I set my base down next to a cliff, which caused all my captured pals to spawn in the geometry. Junji Ito's The Enigma of Amigara Fault is a great piece of horror, but I don't want it replicated in my silly Pokémon-survival-with-guns-game.
The major promises here are in the 'planned future updates' box. PvP—which seems like a no-brainer in a survival-focused game like this—alongside arenas where you can make your pals fight to the death in bloody combat. Or to the K.O, though I wouldn't be surprised if Pocketpair added its own edgy spin to the whole thing.
Endgame raid bosses are also on the list of things to tackle, alongside glittering promises of new pals, new islands, and so on. I've been having a decent bit of fun with the game so far, but these do feel like very optimistic promises without concrete dates—potentially a sign of a studio that's been ambushed by the game's unexpected popularity.
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Steam-Xbox crossplay is also on the docket, which should fix issues with the Game Pass version of Palworld. Ones which have seen hotfixes delayed and menu features completely absent. Earlier this week, the game's community manager Bucky noted that differences between Steam and the Microsoft Store versions wouldn't be fully ironed out until "crossplay is fully compatible."
It is, however, important to remember that the game's still in early access. What early access actually means in our current day and age is up in the air, but I've seen big promises emerge from unexpected beta success before, usually to varying degrees of accuracy. Whether Pocketpair can actually stick this particular landing remains to be seen.
