Palworld Side by Side Update Set for Winter 2026 as Poll Winners Revealed
Pocketpair paired the update tease with poll standings and built the teaser around the top three characters rather than the winning Pal, so the reveal points at character-focused content while the Pal rankings supply a separate hook.
Key Facts
- Pocketpair announced on October 20, 2026 that the Palworld update Palworld: Side by Side will launch in winter 2026.
- Sekhmet placed first in the Pal category of the Palworld Worldwide Popularity Poll 2026, with Monochrona second and Okocho third.
- Zoe placed first in the character category of the Palworld Worldwide Popularity Poll 2026, followed by Auri and Saya.
- Voting for the Palworld Worldwide Popularity Poll 2026 was held in September 2026 and covered more than 280 Pals and in-game characters.
- Palworld reached a Steam concurrent player peak of 2.1 million and its cumulative player count has passed 40 million.
Reporting from 3 sources: 4Gamer.net, Automaton, Game Spark.
Pocketpair announced on October 20, 2026 that Palworld will get a new update, Palworld: Side by Side, in winter 2026. A teaser visual carries the PALWORLD SIDE BY SIDE logo, the text Winter 2026, and three character silhouettes that resemble Zoe, Auri, and Saya. Those three are the top three finishers in the character category of the Palworld Worldwide Popularity Poll 2026, whose results were released the same day. The Pal category was won by Sekhmet, with Monochrona second and Okocho third. Voting ran in September 2026 and covered more than 280 Pals and in-game characters; Pocketpair said the vote total exceeded the previous poll. The full rankings, including language-specific lists, are posted on a special site. The update is about three months after the Palworld 1.0 official release on July 10, 2026.
Game Spark notes the official wording stops at resembling: Pocketpair has not said the three silhouettes will appear in the update, and the contents are undisclosed. The release window is stated only as winter 2026, and it is undecided whether the update will support the same hardware as the current game.
The timing lands roughly three months after Palworld 1.0 shipped on July 10, 2026, a release that added new Pals, areas, and story. Palworld entered early access in January 2024 and reached a Steam concurrent peak of 2.1 million players, and its cumulative player count has passed 40 million, per Automaton. It is available on PC via Steam, the Microsoft Store, and the Mac App Store, on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One, and through Game Pass.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 3 cited sources below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.