Seems like it was only yesterday when Palworld went into early access. It went into early access back in January of 2024. It recently released in July of this year. After years of development and over 2 years of early access, has the game lived up to expectations? Let’s take a look at the changes and how the game is now, ignoring all of those lawsuits from Nintendo.
World and Story
The Early Access version already featured a large open world containing forests, deserts, snowy regions, volcanic areas, islands, towers, dungeons, and other locations. Exploration was one of the game’s strongest features from the beginning, but much of the world functioned primarily as a place to collect resources, discover Pals, and fight bosses.
Version 1.0 significantly expanded the world and its purpose. New regions and locations provided additional reasons to explore after players had already completed much of the original content. The introduction of Sunreach and the expansion surrounding the World Tree gave the late game a much larger geographical and narrative focus.
This means that the Early Access world was largely about discovering what Palworld already had, whereas the 1.0 world was designed to continue giving experienced players meaningful places to explore. Basically, there wasn’t much of a story during the early access. Now, without spoiling, you are given story quests to progress the main story. It’s something like Pokémon where you have to beat 8 Towers (Gym Leaders?), but not so similar in a sense.
More Pals Added
Version 1.0 greatly increased the number of available Pals. The final release added 72 new Pals, giving veteran players considerably more creatures to discover and experiment with. This also expanded the possibilities for combat teams, breeding, transportation, resource gathering, and base management.
The difference is particularly important for longtime players because collecting every available Pal in Early Access could eventually leave them with relatively few new creatures to discover. Version 1.0 was intended to give those players a much larger collection challenge. Some of these Pals were not in the early access phase.
Gameplay and Combat
They made progression considerably more important in 1.0. Instead of simply reaching the end of the technology tree and collecting the strongest equipment, players had additional reasons to continue developing their characters and Pals.
Combat in Early Access was already one of Palworld’s most recognizable features because it combined traditional survival-game combat with Pal abilities. Players could personally use weapons while their Pals fought alongside them. The combat was reworked and expanded.
Bosses received changes, new enemies and encounters were introduced, and additional weapons and progression options gave players more ways to approach battles. The result was a combat system intended to feel more deliberate and complete rather than simply being one component of the survival sandbox.
Final Remarks
If you weren’t around for the early access period, then you haven’t missed much. A lot of the things from early access are still around. They actually made it better, and you can still do whatever you want. Ignore the story and just do the progression if that’s what you like; it’s a polished game, and it’s still getting a lot of good feedback.