Palworld developer Pocketpair conceded it is “difficult” to prevent cheating after players shared instances of hackers stealing their Pals.
A meteoric launch has seen Palworld achieve instant success, becoming just the second game to hit two million concurrent players on Steam. But reports have emerged of hackers being able to steal Pals from other players.
Dataminers have uncovered an unreleased type of Pal Sphere in Palworld, the Radar Sphere, which seems to grant a small chance of being able to snatch Pals owned by another player—and hackers have got their hands on them.
In a response on Discord, Pocketpair’s community manager said “some players have been confirmed to be cheating” on official servers, with a patch planned to counter this soon, adding “it is currently difficult to completely prevent all cheating.”
Preventing players from being able to exploit cheats in this manner is likely to surge near the top of the developer’s to-do list, having confirmed on Jan. 24 that its focus is on “critical issues” ahead of new Pals, Islands, and Technology (which were announced in the early access roadmap).
Instances of hackers stealing players’ Pals appear to be rare and confined to just a handful of occasions. But the hackers’ ability to use items and features not yet released raises a concerning possibility considering the plans Pocketpair has, including PvP.
Though PvP is a while off, failing to stop hackers and cheaters opens the long-term threat of players facing the potential of being killed by other players or having their bases destroyed without any means of being able to fight back, though Pocketpair should have cheating issues resolved in advance of that.
Although Palworld’s success has been staggering, it has not been an easy ride. The Pokémon Company has confirmed it’s investigating Palworld for infringement of its intellectual property—and Nexus Mods announced it won’t be hosting a Palworld Pokémon mod that spread like wildfire across the net.
