Pocketpair confirms Palworld will exit Early Access in 2026 with a major 1.0 update

• Content updates will slow as the team focuses on fixing issues and polishing the game.
• Since launch, Palworld has received five major updates adding mechanics and improvements.
• Palworld has drawn over 32m players since its 2024 launch, including 25m in its first month.
• Nintendo’s legal action over Pokémon similarities has forced changes to the game.

Palworld developer Pocketpair revealed that the game will exit early access in 2026 with a major update planned for its version 1.0 launch.

In a YouTube update, Pocketpair’s communications director and publishing manager, John “Bucky” Buckley, said content updates for Palworld will slow down as the team shifts its focus to polishing and fixing issues ahead of the game’s full release.

“Since Palworld‘s release we’ve shipped five major updates, each adding new mechanics and improving the game in various ways,” Buckley explained.

“Now we’ve reached a crossroads and need to decide what comes next. While we have a lot of ideas for where we want to take Palworld, we also need to start thinking about Palworld 1.0. 

He added: “It’s not a secret that Palworld has a lot of quirks and jank, and we want to take the time to properly address those before releasing the game.

“With that in mind, we plan to start clean-up this year. Our goal is to ultimately release Palworld next year, in 2026, and we think taking the time now to fix those problems will ultimately lead to a better game.”

Legal dispute 

Launched in 2024 through Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview, Palworld quickly became a hit with 25 million players in its first month and over 32m by February 2025. 

However, its similarities to Pokémon have brought legal pressure from Nintendo. Pocketpair argued that the contested concepts appear in many other games.

While continuing to dispute the claims and challenge the validity of the patents, the studio made some compromises to keep Palworld’s development and distribution moving forward.