Palworld servers struggle as players pile on via Steam

Palworld, the upcoming open world survival and crafting game which the internet has dubbed 'Pokémon with guns', is already seeing some impressive player numbers on Steam - to the detriment of its servers.

At the time of writing, a bumper 352,361 potential Pal catchers are making their way through the game's colourful, eclectic and perhaps slightly dubious world. (I recently learned you can catch and sell humans.)

Palworld developer Pocketpair has said that the game is proving so popular, its servers are struggling to keep up.

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"We are blown away with the response to Palworld and we're doing our best to respond to your issues," the Palworld team wrote.

"Currently, our server provider is reporting that due to the large amount of concurrent players, the servers have become unstable and you may be experiencing issues connecting to servers."

"In the meantime, some users have reported success in attempting to connect 2-3 times or waiting after launching the game," Pocketpair concluded.

Our Chris Tapsell has been trying to get into the game, and has been met with the message below. This, he tells me, pops up over the menu when creating a multiplayer game.

Our Zoe has already spent quite a bit of time with Palworld, and you can hear her thoughts on it all in the video above.

Palworld's off to a great start on Steam, then - but these numbers are only half the story. Palworld launches today via Xbox Game Pass as well, meaning there's a whole other audience out there not accounted for. Will you be one of them?