Palworld on Xbox Game Pass vs Steam: Version differences explained
What's Palworld if your pals are catching Pals on another version of Palworld?
For the money-savvy gamer, Xbox Game Pass is a great service that allows players to try out all sorts of games for a simple low monthly fee but it's been something of a headache for Palworld as updates aren't coming through as quickly as they are on Steam.
To help get a grasp of the situation, we have the whole thing explained including why there are differences in the first place and when we can perhaps expect feature parity between the two versions.
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It's hardly an ideal situation either as Palworld is great to play with friends but the discrepancies between Xbox Game Pass and Steam mean that crossplay isn't possible.
Pocketpair and Xbox have both announced they are committed to resolving this however so there's hope yet and perhaps paves the way for Palworld becoming available on other platforms too that can all play nice with one another.
Why is Palworld different on Xbox Game Pass and Steam?
Palworld is different on Xbox Game Pass and Steam due to the certification process used on Game Pass, which takes longer than Steam.
This means that patches are slower to roll out on the Game Pass version, as the certification team will be checking out each patch for considerably longer.
Due to Palworld being an early access title, patches are released quite frequently, allowing the Steam version to pull ahead considerably - which may go some way towards explaining the huge number of players on the platform.
As reported by Brendan Lowry for Windows Central, community manager Bucky explained on Discord: "Some of these things will take extra time... We're really at the mercy of the certification here. We're desperately trying to speed this up."
Bucky went on to provide more details, saying: "Issues like the missing exit game button etc are not a result of an 'older build', these are separate issues."
Bucky added: "Steam and Xbox will likely never have identical version numbers until the games are brought to be [crossplay] compatible, because at that point they will be the same game internally."
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What are the differences between Palworld on Xbox Game Pass and Steam?
As of writing, there are a number of disparities between the Xbox Game Pass and Steam versions of Palworld, some of which we have listed below for you.
- Steam has support for 32 players on a server, whereas on Game Pass you can only have four-player co-op
- Issues with audio bugs (which have since been fixed)
- The aforementioned missing exit button for quitting the game
- Different names for items in the game
- Certain features function slightly differently or are unlocked via other means
As time goes on, this should continue to improve - but in the meantime, you may be left out if your pals have bought the game on Steam and you have the Game Pass version.
When is Palworld getting updated on Xbox Game Pass?
Hopefully soon as Pocketpair laid out in their roadmap that "Various Xbox Feature Improvements" will be part of the planned future updates.
This was announced in a recent post to X (formerly Twitter) and can be viewed just below.
Much of this lies with the Xbox certification team however, so it's not entirely up to Pocketpair as they will no doubt be just as frustrated with the situation as players are but Xbox has confirmed they are working on it as announced by Joe Skrebels on Xbox Wire.
"On Xbox’s part, we’re working with Pocketpair to help provide support for Xbox versions of the game. We’re providing support to enable dedicated servers, offering engineering resources to help with GPU and memory optimization, speeding up the process to make Palworld updates available for players, and working with the team to optimize the title for our platform"
Xbox have no doubt recognised the colossal success and it has brought a great deal of renewed interest in their already successful subscription model, but nonetheless, the gap between versions is certainly helping Pocketpair to shift copies on Steam as the player count is almost two-to-one in Steam's favour, no doubt due to the feature complete Steam version, something Xbox will be sorely keen to remedy.
Read more on Palworld: Full list of Palworld Pals | Do Pals evolve? | Palworld vs Pokémon | Palworld on Xbox Game Pass vs Steam | Palworld bosses | Palworld mods | Palworld Anubis | Palworld base guide | Palworld map | Palworld Ore farm | Palworld patch notes | Is Palworld free? | Palworld sales numbers | Palworld Depresso | Palworld starters | Palworld breeding combos | Palworld PC requirements | Will Palworld come to PS4, Mac and Switch? | Palworld server status | Palworld multiplayer | Palworld achievements | Palworld reviews | Palworld release date
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Authors
Cole Luke is a freelance journalist and video producer who contributes to RadioTimes.com's Gaming section. He also has bylines for Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, Network N and more.
