Palworld climbs the Twitch charts as streamers discover it contains bird butt grenade launchers, human trafficking, and other bizarro acts of Pal cruelty

Palworld, aka that game everyone has spent the last two years referring to as “Pokémon with guns,” is out on Friday, but streamers are already broadcasting it ahead of launch—and going off early Twitch numbers, it’s a hit. Wednesday morning (Pacific time) Palworld had around 60,000 viewers on Twitch, and that figure has climbed steadily throughout the day. At the time of writing it’s neck-and-neck with Fortnite, each with around 85,000 viewers. 

Traffic is fairly well distributed across a healthy number of streamers, so Palworld’s developers clearly haven’t just paid for a few big name sponsors to make for a big launch. (Though it helps that Twitch’s fourth-biggest star by followers, Spanish-Norwegian streamer Rubius, is currently broadcasting to some 21,500 people.)