Highlights

  • Palworld's Steam version offers faster crafting compared to the Xbox version, giving players a more efficient gameplay experience.
  • Xbox players can only craft one arrow at a time, while Steam players can craft three, affecting the early game combat strategy.
  • Unlocking Statues of Power requires Ancient Technology Points on Xbox, whereas Steam players can unlock them with Technology Points, giving Steam players an advantage in progression.

Palworld has undoubtedly been captivating gamers with its vast open world and adorable creature collecting since it entered its early access period, despite any criticism it has faced for its parallels to Game Freak's Pokemon franchise. Its unique take on the survival crafting formula of games like ARK: Survival Evolved and the creature collecting of Pokemon have earned it a place among Steam's best-selling games of all time, but it also manages to maintain a decent reputation on its console platform, Xbox.

One would think that Palworld would be the same game between platforms, aside from perhaps some technical issues and visual discrepancies. However, that doesn't appear to be the case, as Palworld's Steam and Xbox versions differ on a much more fundamental level, compromising some of the game's core gameplay features and causing Steam to be the platform of choice among Palworld players. As these differences have surfaced online, many Xbox players have found themselves migrating to Steam to play Palworld now that it has been revealed that the two platforms host different versions of the game.

Palworld Pal with explosions in the background
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Palworld's Steam and Xbox Versions Have Fundamental Differences

Although Palworld's Steam and Xbox versions differ in significant ways, developer Pocketpair has publicly acknowledged those differences and committed to updating the Xbox version to match its Steam counterpart. However, until then, Xbox players who are unable or unwilling to play their new favorite creature collector on Steam will have to continue to deal with a number of major differences that affect the game in some rather serious ways:

  • Crafting is much faster on Steam
  • Three arrows can be crafted on Steam compared to Xbox's one
  • Steam players can unlock Statues of Power with Technology Points, whereas Xbox players need Ancient Technology Points
  • Steam allows players to name their character
  • Steam allows players to rename their Pals
  • Palworld's Xbox and Microsoft Store versions are currently missing sound effects that can be found in the Steam version
  • Steam's version of Palworld possesses better audio quality than Xbox
  • Xbox does not have a "Return to Title" option in the menu, while Steam does

As one of Palworld's primary features is crafting, the Steam version allowing its players to craft items much faster is a highly unfortunate difference. Regarding crafting, Steam's version of Palworld lets players craft three arrows at a time, whereas Xbox players can only craft one. Arrows are a valuable ammo resource in Palworld's early game, as they are one of the player's most efficient methods of dealing damage to enemies prior to unlocking guns.

Ancient Technology Points are also a rare and valuable resource in Palworld since they can only be obtained by defeating bosses. Additionally, even though most of the game's bosses respawn after a brief period of time, Ancient Technology Points are only awarded to the player upon their first defeat of each boss.

Technology Points, on the other hand, are very easy to acquire, as they can be acquired through a variety of means, including simply finding fast-travel points. Since unlocking Statues of Power on Xbox requires Ancient Technology Points as opposed to Technology Points, which the Steam version requires, this makes the Xbox version of Palworld fall short yet again.

It's disappointing for Xbox players, to say the least, that Palworld is clearly a much better experience on Steam than it is on Xbox. However, Pocketpair has already acknowledged that it is hard at work to make the game a better experience for everyone, Xbox players included. In light of that, committed Xbox players should hold onto hope that the game they have grown to love will not be neglected forever, and will receive the updates it needs to put it on par with Steam's version.