Palworld hits Steam peak and unveils card game as Nintendo lawsuit looms

After releasing version 1.0, the survival‑craft game Palworld surged to the top of Steam’s most‑played list on the night of 16 July, registering more than 510,000 concurrent players and briefly displacing Counter‑Strike 2. The game’s overall user base now exceeds 2.1 million, and its popularity has also risen sharply on consoles, with Xbox activity jumping over 400 % after the full launch.

Pocketpair, the developer, announced that an official Palworld trading‑card game will launch on 30 July. The move comes amid ongoing lawsuits from Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, which allege the game copies elements of their franchises. The legal dispute adds a commercial and legal risk to the franchise’s expanding presence.