So yet another week has passed since Palworld went into early access, and that week has seen the game grow even more. According to The Loadout, the game has seen more than 19 million players (and counting) log onto try the developer’s “ARK meets Pokemon” survival-crafitng game, and that it’s seemingly coming at ridiculous cost. At the moment, Pocket Pair claims it’s looking at monthly server costs of about $478,000!

I don’t understand just how the studio is still in business at all with that kind of overhead, but it is and the company’s network engineer, Chujo Hiroto, insists that they’re committed to not letting the service go down. This is great for Palworld fans, but again I wonder how long Pocket Pair will be able to keep this up without some sort of help.

Rumors are circulating that Microsoft is stepping-in to some degree, but these are seemingly as yet unconfirmed. Seriously though, how on earth can it be so expensive to host a game online these days? Online gaming infrastructure should basically be a matured technology by now, so is it really operating costs or is it just crazy fees?

Further, I wonder if Palworld would have been better-served as a primarily single-player experience with peer-to-peer networking for small group co-op? It’s already only a four-play game on Xbox, and I don’t really see why you would need more people than that. Perhaps someone who’s been playing can explain it? Anyway, the point is that fans, for the timebeing at least, don’t need to worry about the game suddenly shutting down. Here’s hoping the developer can find a more long-term solution soon though.

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Are you enjoying Palworld? How have its online features factored into your experience? Does the server cost make sense to you?

Image is official promotional art