Initially dubbed ‘Pokémon with guns’, this off-brand indie game received a lot of attention. En masse, people flocked to play it, and it turns out that Palworld is actually a lot of fun and well worth diving into.
As well as having loads of cute creatures for you to collect, including the fan favourite Depresso, Palworld also boasts a wide open world to explore and some surprisingly deep base building mechanics. But is it free? Read on to find out!
Is Palworld free?
For PC players looking to get the game on Steam, Palworld is not free. The early access game has an RRP of £24.99 on Steam, with Valve’s iconic launcher currently offering a 10 per cent discount to bring it down to £22.49.
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However, there is good news! Palworld is available on Xbox Game Pass. You can play an early access build of the game via Xbox Game Pass for console, PC and cloud.
As much as you could pay £24.99 to buy the game outright from the Xbox Store, you could also spend a lot less and get it included with an Xbox Game Pass subscription.
Note: the Palworld developers have admitted that the Xbox Game Pass version and the Steam version are not identical (shoutout to Windows Central for spotting this on the game’s Discord).
The biggest difference is that the Steam version supports up to 32 players in the same lobby, while the Xbox Game Pass version only supports groups of four playing together.
Palworld deals: What’s the cheapest way to play?
If you want to play Palworld in the cheapest way possible, it’s worth noting that there is a £1 trial available for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at the moment.
You can sign up on the Microsoft website to get Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for £1, and then you’ll be able to access Palworld via Game Pass on your Xbox console, the Xbox PC launcher or Xbox Cloud Gaming.
This 14-day trial will give you ample time to try out the title, but it will renew monthly at a price of £12.99 – unless you cancel in time.
If you’re looking to buy the Steam version of Palworld on the cheap, we’d recommend that you check out the latest deals on CD Keys.
At the time of writing, we can see that CD Keys will sell you a Steam key for £20.49. That’s a saving of 18 per cent, which isn’t to be scoffed at!
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