Highlights

  • Palworld started suffering from server outages on January 21, three days into its release.
  • The ongoing problems are preventing fans from accessing the game's multiplayer modes.
  • Developer Pocketpair said it's working on resolving the issues ASAP and has promised to share an update on its efforts to do so as soon as any new info becomes available.

Palworld is presently suffering from server outages that are preventing players from accessing its multiplayer modes. The ongoing problems mark the second wave of connectivity issues with the game since Palworld was released in early access on January 19.

Pocketpair's latest title has already proven to be a huge hit, with the Japanese developer revealing that it surpassed 3 million sales within 40 hours of hitting the market. And while Palworld thus promptly became one of the most popular Steam games of all time, that massive momentum came at the price of some server instability due to the enormous influx of players trying to access its multiplayer during the launch weekend.

Angry Pikachu doodle with Palworld logo and characters on blue background
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As a result, Palworld multiplayer is now not working for many players for the second time in the 72 hours since the game's debut. Pocketpair has consequently taken to Twitter to post a server outage notice on January 21, stating that the huge volume of player traffic has caused problems with its implementation of Epic Online Services, which Palworld uses for its backend. In an effort to provide more context, the Japanese studio revealed that its hit game exceeded 1.3 million concurrent players during its launch weekend.

Epic Game's First Palworld Hotfix Wasn't Enough

The Palworld developer had already held an emergency meeting with Epic Games on January 20, which produced a hotfix that resolved some of the earlier connectivity issues with the game. However, it would appear that the move did not suffice to stabilize the Palworld backend, as suggested by this latest wave of issues. Pocketpair has already repeatedly apologized for any inconveniences caused by these ongoing outages, saying that it's working on resolving the problems in a swift manner. The developer promised to share an update on its efforts to do so via Discord and Twitter as soon as new information is available.

Epic Games, for its part, recently said that the initial Palworld connectivity issues were caused by the game hitting a preconfigured connection limit, which happened around the time when Pocketpair's title was boasting some 700,000 concurrent players across PC and Xbox consoles. Be that as it may, this newest wave of problems is a fairly strong indicator that the company never anticipated games using Epic Online Services would need to support such a massive volume of traffic.

That state of affairs also suggests Palworld is by far the most successful game using Epic Online Services ever made. For clarity, all developers are free to implement the EOS framework into their titles, even if they don't launch them on the Epic Games Store, which is exactly what Pocketpair did with Palworld.