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Palworld is going quiet as Pocketpair takes an iron to its ‘quirks and jank,’ with full release planned for 2026

Joshua Wolens

16 September 2025

Almost two years on, Palworld is nearly ready for primetime. For a given definition of ‘nearly,’ anyway.

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(Image credit: Pocketpair)

It’s easy to forget amid the enormous success, Nintendo court cases, and that time its dev started a publisher, but Palworld isn’t even really out yet. The game’s been in early access since its release almost two years ago—1.0 remaining eternally on the horizon.

But that horizon draws nearer. In an update published today to Pocketpair’s various social media channels to announce two main things: that it’s resolved to put out Palworld’s 1.0 version in 2026, and that doing that means there probably won’t be any huge updates for the rest of 2025.
“Beyond just adding new content, there’s a lot of cleanup that needs to be done before Palworld can exit early access,” says Pocketpair community director Bucky in the announcement video. “It’s no 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 this cleanup this year.”

Related Articles

Palworld just got a huge Terraria-themed update, which as it turns out is a lot less ridiculous than Silent Bob in Warzone

Palworld’s Terraria update lands it back in Steam’s Top 10 with over 120,000 players coming back, but its community manager is just waiting for people to brand it a ‘dead game’ again

Balatro’s big 1.1 update is delayed to 2026, for a very good reason: ‘I’m slow’

And then comes the bad news, though frankly I doubt anyone will be too upset about it, given what Bucky just said. “It means that things will be a little quiet from us for the rest of this year. It also means our winter update won’t be as big as Feybreak was.”

Feybreak was Palworld’s 2024 winter update, and it was pretty humungous. It added a new island (that’d be Feybreak), new weapons, new mechanics, new resources, and a new type of Pals—predators dotted about the world who are pretty tough to take down.

Palworld 1.0, Pocketpair and The Future – YouTube

So, you know, don’t expect something like that again, because Pocketpair is beavering away at ironing out the bugs and quirks that—I have to imagine—big old updates like that bring along with them.
That’s not to say there’s no winter update, mind you. “We still do have a few surprises planned for our winter update this year, we just want to be transparent about where we’re headed and the development of Palworld going forward,” Bucky reassures. Pocketpair’s also planning some “sneak peeks” of upcoming 1.0 content in the near future, which will hopefully sate ravenous players with a glimpse of the “truly massive amount of content planned for the 1.0 update.”

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Joshua Wolens

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News Writer

One of Josh’s first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he’s been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He’ll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin’s Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you’re all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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Palworld just got a huge Terraria-themed update, which as it turns out is a lot less ridiculous than Silent Bob in Warzone

Palworld’s Terraria update lands it back in Steam’s Top 10 with over 120,000 players coming back, but its community manager is just waiting for people to brand it a ‘dead game’ again

Balatro’s big 1.1 update is delayed to 2026, for a very good reason: ‘I’m slow’

Palworld studio changes its mind about releasing its co-op Hollow Knight-like in early access, will go straight to 1.0

Why did Team Cherry’s devs stay so quiet about Hollow Knight: Silksong? ‘All we could really say is, we’re still working on it’, so they stopped doing that

Crimson Desert is being ‘unavoidably delayed’ for a second time, now set to release in early 2026

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