Two and a half years after it stormed onto Steam and Game Pass and sold tens of millions of copies almost overnight, Palworld is finally leaving Early Access. Pocketpair has confirmed that the full 1.0 release arrives on July 10, 2026 across PC (Steam), PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with day-one availability on Game Pass - and, crucially, it is free for anyone who already owns the game.
Pocketpair has described 1.0 as bigger in scale than any update the studio has ever released, and the numbers back that up: the changelog runs to 27 pages.
A world that nearly doubles in size
The centerpiece is a huge new region built around a towering World Tree, joined by a second large island. Together they roughly double the playable landmass compared with the map that shipped in 2024. The World Tree functions as an endgame zone stuffed with high-level enemies, new resources and story beats that Pocketpair frames as fragments of a grand narrative inching closer to the truth of the world. There are also new Sky Islands to reach with the new Wing Pack aerial gear.
More Pals, PvP and a progression overhaul
Version 1.0 adds more new Pals than any previous update, alongside fresh weapons, armor and gear. Under the hood, the progression systems have been significantly reworked, changing how players climb through the game, and the Tower Boss battles have been rebuilt to feel more dynamic. Two of the most-requested features finally arrive too: a proper PvP mode and a Genetic Recombination breeding system for chasing the perfect Pal.
Existing players will not be forced to wipe their worlds to move to 1.0, so the hours already sunk in are safe. Pocketpair still reckons a fresh start is the best way to feel the scale of the changes, but that call is left to each player. Either way, after a long, occasionally turbulent Early Access, Palworld is arriving at its 1.0 destination as one of the biggest survival games of the generation.
