Palworld 1.0 Review

In January 2024, Palworld earned the label “Pokémon with guns”, and plenty of people expected a joke that would last one weekend. Two and a half years later, the game has more than 486,000 reviews on Steam, 94.6% of them positive, and in July 2026 it launched in its full 1.0 version. The joke held up. And that’s because underneath it, the whole time, there was a solidly built base-building game.

It’s not a game about catching, it’s a game about work

This is something you won’t pick up from the trailer. Catching Pals looks like the core of the game, but it’s really just the ticket to the more interesting part: a captured Pal goes to your base to work. One mines ore, another puts out fires, a third plants crops, a fourth crafts in the workshop.

And this is where a cute game turns into something surprisingly addictive. Every Pal has its own work specialties and levels, your base has a limited number of slots, and you try to put together a crew so that everything runs on its own. The first time it clicks and you come back after half an hour of exploring to a working factory staffed by creatures you caught along the way, it’s a feeling you won’t find in other survival games.

Shooting as a joke that works

Guns in the hands of cute little creatures aren’t just a stunt to grab attention. The combat is fairly ordinary, but its existence changes the game’s whole economy: you can catch Pals the nice way, or weaken them and catch them the hard way, and the same logic applies to human enemies and the Tower Bosses that move you forward.

It’s not the best shooting you’ve ever played. But it’s good enough to keep exploration fun, and that’s exactly as much as the game needs.

Version 1.0: finished, and it shows

Palworld spent two and a half years in early access and left it on 9 July 2026. It’s a difference that has to be said out loud in a review: you’re not buying an unfinished game and you’re not relying on promises. What’s in the game today is what you get for your money.

The interest was obvious: searches related to the game in Czechia jumped to five times their usual level at the time. PS5 Pro also got an enhanced version.

Where it falls short

Three things, and none of them is minor.

Language support has gaps. The game supports seventeen languages, including English, Polish, Turkish and Indonesian, but not every language is covered: Czech and Slovak, for example, are missing. A community translation exists and works, but it’s a file modification that can stop working after a big update.

The later hours get repetitive. The “catch, build, optimize” loop is great for the first few dozen hours. Then comes a phase where you do the same thing with better materials, and the game doesn’t give you enough new reasons to keep going. If you enjoy optimization for its own sake, you’ll last hundreds of hours. If you’re expecting a story, you’ll stop sooner.

Performance varies depending on how many Pals are running around your base. The developers say so themselves in the requirements, and you can feel it. The game also requires an SSD, which isn’t a given for a survival game from 2024.

What you get for your money

A one-time purchase for €28.99 on Steam, with no subscription and no season pass. In Game Pass the game is included in the subscription, so it costs you nothing extra there, and that’s still the best way to find out whether it hooks you.

Who it’s for

Buy it if you enjoy building and fine-tuning systems. Even more so if you have people to play with: co-op and cross-platform play are where the game comes alive the most.

Skip it if you’re expecting a narrated story, or if it puts you off that it starts repeating itself after a few dozen hours.

Verdict

Palworld is a game that deserved more respect than it got. Behind the “Pokémon with guns” joke is a genuine survival sandbox with an idea nobody else has (the creatures you catch actually work for you), and after version 1.0 it’s a finished product, not a promise. The only thing holding it back is that the later hours don’t offer enough that’s new.

FAQ