Palworld 1.0 Review – Bigger, Better, and Still Brutally Addictive

Palworld 1.0 Review

Remember Palworld? Well, the controversial game from Pocketpair finally has a 1.0 release. After two years, this feels like a very different animal than the one I initially encountered. The quest system is more complete, the UI is polished, and the world feels much more interconnected than before. While there are still some rough edges, this version of Palworld is a vastly improved one.

Now, I haven’t been keeping up with every iteration of Palworld released up to this point. So I’m not clear on how gradual or sudden these changes might be. But oh man, the quest system feels like night and day. You’re fed a steady stream of quests from the jump. They pair nicely with the tech tree, they appear on your map, and they sync with your compass. Yes, this is incredibly basic stuff. We figured out quest design decades ago. But you really appreciate the elegance of that design when it’s missing. Then when it finally shows up? It’s water in the desert.

Quests Are Best, It Turns Out

Beyond the quests, it turns out Palworld works much better with connective tissue in place. Fast travel points, side quests, a detailed map, and distant objectives (like a floating island on the horizon) all make the world feel more tangible. Having an objective at all times kept me hooked on the game. Or at least, objectives are perfect for stringing you along until the factory sim element gets its claws in you. Once the big machine gets going, you don’t need anything else to maintain momentum.

The complete list of additions in Palworld 1.0 is downright intimidating. You can read the whole thing on their Steam page, but the highlights are remarkable. 72 new Pals, the Sunreach region, the World Tree, and an increased level cap all speak to a much larger, more complete game. There’s more of course, but the point remains – Palworld has undergone significant changes since the early access days.

Tons of Changes

This new version of Palworld still has some flaws, to be fair. The laptop I’m using is decently powerful, but I encountered a handful of framerate dips regardless. More important than the tiny performance issues is the core gameplay loop. Things hum along at a more relatable pace than ever before, sure. But you’re still faced with a pretty murderous grind. Pal levels creep upward slowly, and getting through that tech trees gets daunting quite quickly. While things start out breezy enough, the endgame is strictly for simulation psychopaths.

By which I mean the truly dedicated. Which is totally fine! There’s a fascinating disconnect between the monster battling and the base building. You can immerse yourself in one and ignore the other, at least for a hefty chunk of playtime. Although perhaps my impressions of the battling are skewed by hands off it all is. Your Pals run on autopilot, both in battle and beyond it. So for me, the fights are a diversion from my tiny empire.

Got a Business to Run

In that regard, Palworld remains a specialized interest. Either you’re ready to get lost in the details of empire expansion and monster murder, or you’ll quickly lose momentum. The quest system, new content, and expanded Pal roster are all incidental in the face of this essential truth. The gooey caramel center that is the gameplay loop is more or less the same as it ever was. My mind was changed about this game, true. But I’m prone to hyper focus and bouts of mania. So a vast and ruthless machine like Palworld is straight up catnip for my badly wired brain.

The 1.0 release of Palworld presents a very different game than the original early access version. The quest system has been revamped, the map has been expanded, and civilization is scattered everywhere. But the gameplay loop is still pretty relentless. Plus, the rough edges haven’t been completely removed. If the old game was almost it for you, this new iteration might be exactly what you yearned for. But Palworld 1.0 is still an acquired taste.

***A Steam key was provided by the publisher***