Palworld Will Finally Let Players Duke It Out In New ‘Arena’ Mode
The new mode may be the shot in the arm that "Pokémon-with-guns" needs.
After taking the world by storm earlier this year, Palworld, the Pokémon-inspired crafting game from indie developer Pocket Pair, will finally introduce a much-requested element to the monster-catching experience later this year.
The Palworld Arena will add a player-versus-player mode that lets players pit their strongest creatures against one another in a fight for PalSupremacy. Pocket Pair announced the update during Wednesday’s indie showcase, Triple-i Initiative.
A svelt, 15-second teaser confirmed trainers will assemble a team of at least three Pals in the mode. They’ll also be able to take direct action in these fights (that is, unloading an absurd amount of bullets into their opponent’s trio of adorable bipedal friends) to clinch victory.
As a clear send-up of Pokémon, Palworld’s lack of a PvP mode at launch always seemed like a missed opportunity. While hours upon hours of collaborative play is great, it's only a matter of time before players start wondering if their battle-tested Pals could best a friend in a fight. Until now, players were left wondering what that glorious battle would be like.
Palworld is still pulling in a respectable number of players daily, with a peak of more than 127,000 users just earlier this week, according to SteamDB. But the ability to fight alongside these powerful creatures against friends and strangers could be what the game needs to reach the kind of record-breaking highs that shot it to the top of Xbox and Steam charts.
The Pokémon-inspired crafting game is the surprise hit of the year. An amalgamation of Minecraft, GameFreak’s Pokémon series, and Fortnite, Palworld sold 8 million copies in just six days and became the biggest third-party Xbox Game Pass launch ever. Virtually no one foresaw Palworld being this massive. Alongside Helldivers 2, Palworld kicked off industry conversations about the diminishing returns of triple-A development.
Soon players will be able to fight other players alongside not-Leafeon.
Its success didn’t come without its fair share of controversy. Some gamers and developers accused Pocket Pair of flipping Nintendo assets to create its roster of lovable creatures. The Pokémon Company said they’d “investigate” the origins of the indie game due to its undeniable resemblance to its beloved franchise.
Arena mode is part of Pocket Pair’s bigger plans for future updates. Other upcoming features include crossplay and cross saves, endgame raids, improvements to the building system, and even new islands and Pals to collect.
