Palworld launched on January 19 in early access, and the developer's CEO estimates the game is about 60% feature-complete. Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe told Automaton that "all the basic functions" are in place for Palworld. Looking ahead, Pocketpair will look to further refine the game and introduce new functionality, including potentially PvP.

"PvP is really difficult. First of all, we need to think about why we are introducing PvP to Palworld. To begin with, there are many other games that offer a fun PvP experience, so we need to make sure that there is a reason for Palworld players to play PvP," Mizobe said. "Of course, using Pals you caught in battle is one unique point, but only games that give players a good reason to play can survive in the long term. In this sense, I think it's a very harsh territory."

Mizobe said Pocketpair is "not very optimistic" about adding PvP to Palworld, adding that the chance of success in making a successful PvP mode would be below 10%.

"That's how high the hurdle is to succeed in PvP," he said.

If Pocketpair does add PvP, the team would need to consider if the mode would play out with Pals against Pals only, or Pals fighting alone or alongside humans, Mizobe said. Then there is the consideration of if these hypothetical PvP battles would take place in a dedicated arena or out in the world.

"In the case of the arena format, I think that real-time action battles would be the first thing that users would imagine. However, we are also considering an asynchronous battle pattern in which pals fight each other automatically," Mizobe said. "There are a lot of technical details to be discussed, but we are also considering a format in which pals are registered in the arena and users can freely choose to fight, which would lower the barrier to entry and allow more casual PvP."

On Steam, Palworld's price is going up to $30 on January 25. That's the normal price on Xbox, or Game Pass subscribers can play it for nothing extra. The Xbox version is apparently an older edition of the game with a lower player count cap.

Palworld launched on January 19 and exploded in popularity, at one point selling more than 86,000 copies per hour. It's now shifted more than 6 million units, which is to say nothing of how it's performed on Xbox Game Pass.

The Palworld discourse has covered all sorts of topics, ranging from the smashing sales success to accusations of asset theft. For more, check out GameSpot's guides hub for Palworld.