Pocketpair’s Palworld is enjoying significant success, clinching the third spot in Steam’s all-time highest concurrent player records and boasting sales of over five million copies in its first three days. Despite this triumph, Xbox Series X/S players are experiencing a notably different version of the game than their Steam counterparts. As reported by Windows Central, the discrepancies range from the inability to name characters or alter pal names to a slower pace in crafting activities, among other limitations.
Notably, the game on Xbox doesn’t even feature an ‘Exit’ button to quit the game. These differences, it turns out, are rooted in the distinct version numbers of the game on each platform. “On Steam, [the hotfix] applied two days ago. On Xbox, [it’s] sitting in the MS certification queue,” Pocketpair’s community manager Bucky stated on Discord.
When discussing the aspiration for feature parity across platforms, Bucky mentioned, “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.” However, it’s essential to recognize that the missing ‘Exit’ button on Xbox isn’t simply due to an older game version. It’s reflective of fundamentally different game versions on each platform.
“Issues like the missing exit game button are not a result of an ‘older build.’ These are separate issues. Steam and Xbox will likely never have identical version numbers until the games are brought to be cross-play compatible because, at that point, they will be the same game internally,” Bucky explained. He added, “Again, that doesn’t mean Xbox is necessarily ‘behind’ or anything. They are fundamentally two different versions of the game because the architecture on Xbox is different.”
Despite these platform-specific differences, it’s currently perceived that the Steam version provides a more complete Palworld experience. For a more comprehensive understanding of the game, be sure to check out our review of Palworld.
