New Perspectives on Palworld for Xbox: A Less Complete but Still Enjoyable Version
Palworld, the game where players shoot cartoon animals with firearms and then force them to mine resources all day, is gaining popularity worldwide for good reasons. However, those who play Palworld on Xbox and through the Microsoft Store, available as part of the Game Pass service, experience a noticeable difference in the game version – something I personally observed after playing over 50 hours on the Xbox console following my adventure with the more polished Steam version. Unfortunately, the Xbox version has some additional technical and performance issues, missing features, and a multiplayer mode limited to four players without dedicated servers. This is to be expected for a game available in Early Access, which is still alive and evolving, but it certainly feels like a significantly less complete product.
A Notable Difference in Performance
The most immediately noticeable way in which this version of Palworld differs is performance. While graphic glitches, objects disappearing at close range, and frame rate drops are present on Steam, they are much more prominent on Xbox. Navigating the world over longer distances leads to extremely blurry textures that sometimes never fully load, even when approaching them. In several instances, strange flickering occurred, which only stopped upon returning to the main menu. However, the worst issue is the audio effect on Xbox versions, which varies in quality. Some sounds have very low quality and sound as if they are being heard through an old shortwave radio, while other sound effects simply don’t exist. None of these problems were severe enough to significantly deter me from playing Palworld, but they certainly made my marathon sessions less enjoyable.
Annoying Bugs on the Console Version
On the console version of Palworld, you may also encounter some irritating bugs that I did not notice on the Steam version. The most troublesome one is the fact that when flying on the back of a Pal (especially in more advanced areas like snowy mountains or fiery volcanoes, where a lot is happening), sometimes parts of the world do not load correctly and become intangible. This means you fly through them and end up underground. I found myself under the map multiple times, flying around in search of spots where I could fly back underground to get back to the proper side of the map. It happened so frequently that I started noticing when certain surfaces had blurred textures, indicating the possibility of passing through them. Such a level of inconvenience can be challenging to accept, considering I did not experience any of it on Steam, where the map and its textures loaded much faster.
Missing Features and a Less Exclusive Experience
Additionally, there are also some minor features on Steam that are not available on Xbox, such as the ability to name characters or assign nicknames to Pals. This can be a bit confusing when your characters are named “Player 916” instead of your Gamertag, making communication with friends more difficult. The absence of such details did not ruin my enjoyment (after all, I didn’t want to give names to those poor animals I intended to treat poorly, considering I probably planned to remove their organs), but it certainly contributed to a less exclusive feeling.
All of these issues raise some concerns, but as a whole, they only slightly impact the enjoyment of the game. You can still hunt dozens of intriguing Pals, have fun with jokes in an open world, and get lost in the fascinating survival mechanics. That still holds true, even with the lower frame rate and occasional game crashes, but it does make my recommendation slightly less enthusiastic for now. If you don’t tolerate subtle imperfections and uncertainties in survival games, it might be best to wait a little before diving into Palworld.
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The source of the article is from the blog kewauneecomet.com