Palworld's devs are very sorry for deploying a patch that 'inadvertently fixed a bug'

Botched patches are the worst. Devs spend hours, days or weeks on them, players get excited for them, but when they release they just cause tumult and upset. Ideally, they just mess up something minor, a bagatelle that very few people will notice and that you can rectify in the next patch. But sometimes it's worse. Sometimes, you accidentally fix a bug. You think it only ever happens to other people, and then it happens to you.

That's just what happened with Palworld's most recent patch, which you might remember for buffing the letter F and crashing the nail economy. Alongside all its intended patch notes, a pernicious extra fix snuck in: A bug that had allowed players "to capture the tower boss" ended up "unintentionally fixed."

"We apologize for inadvertently fixing a bug," wrote Palworld developer Pocketpair on Twitter.

It is, of course, quite funny for a developer to apologise for a patch unintentionally fixing a bug, but it begins to make sense once you drill down into the details. The bug that Palworld's 0.1.5.0 patch has accidentally rectified is a popular exploit that lets you kidnap the pals who act as the game's tower bosses, like Axel and Orserk. Being bosses, they're a pretty powerful bunch of lads, or er, pals. Heck, we even have our own article explaining how to do it. Rest in peace, sweet prince.

Suddenly removing the ability to abduct them (and not even including a patch note about it, what with it being accidental and all) probably came as a grim surprise to the Palworld power gamers out there.

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for Pocketpair to restore the exploit, though. It was a bug, after all, and patches do generally exist to patch bugs out (unless you're Hitman). I think Pocketpair is apologising for the lack of warning more than the existence of the fix itself. Not to worry, I'm sure someone will find some exciting new exploit to take advantage of soon enough, or even mod this one back in.

Palworld players excel in finding exploits. Whether it's the bug that lets you carry 9,999 items, or the one that lets you infinitely mount, then butcher the same helpless creature for parts, the crimes against god and decency never cease. No wonder this thing has 25 million players.