Two and a half years after one of the most explosive Early Access launches in Steam’s history, Palworld is done with Early Access. Version 1.0 went live on July 10, simultaneously across Steam, the Microsoft Store, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Game Pass. Pocketpair did not raise the game’s price at launch, describing the decision as a thank-you to a community that has now passed 40 million total players.
The scale of the update is not something you can adequately summarize briefly. The official patch notes run roughly 27 pages and more than 10,000 words, coming close enough to Steam’s character limit for announcements that Pocketpair nearly could not post them. The studio describes the result as essentially a new game.
There are 72 new Pals, consisting of 47 entirely new creatures and 25 variants of existing ones, bringing the full roster to 287. Two new regions: Sunreach, a set of floating sky islands kept aloft by Paldium energy, and the World Tree, the long-visible landmark that has been blocked behind an impassable barrier since launch day in January 2024. The World Tree is now the game’s primary endgame zone, complete with high-level enemies, new resources, and the story missions Pocketpair describes as the completion of Palworld’s central narrative. The player level cap rises from 65 to 80.
Two new core mechanics arrive alongside the new regions. Awakening allows players to push their most developed Pals beyond previous limits, and Mutation introduces a rare breeding outcome that can produce exceptionally powerful offspring. The Wing Pack, a player-worn glider that occupies a gear slot rather than a Pal party slot, fundamentally changes traversal: for the first time, players can fly without sacrificing one of their five combat slots. Base raids have been reworked into a wave-based system, and more than 100 new Pal animations have been added to give the roster more life at rest and in motion.
Pocketpair is recommending a fresh character to experience 1.0 as designed, since the story, progression, and world structure have all been overhauled. Existing saves remain playable but main and sub-mission progress resets to align with the new reward structure, with Tower Boss completion status automatically updated based on prior kills. The one notable absence from the launch build is Server Clustering, which had been announced pre-launch but does not appear in the 1.0 notes.
The 1.0 launch pushed Palworld back to nearly half a million concurrent players on Steam, its highest count since the original Early Access spike. A first paid DLC, Dawn of the Palpagos, is already scheduled for July 30. Pocketpair has made it abundantly clear that the game is not entering a low-maintenance maintenance phase.
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