Overview
- Pocketpair announced Tuesday that the next major Palworld update, titled Side by Side, is due in Winter 2026 and published the results of its Palworld Global Popularity Poll 2026.
- The initial announcement offered few specifics and only a teaser image showing three Pals blacked out, with the studio asking players to stay tuned for future updates.
- The popularity poll named Sekhmet, Solenne (Solene), and Chillet as the top Pals and Zoe, Auri, and Saya as the top human characters in the vote results.
- Head of publishing John “Bucky” Buckley has said the team will not add a very large number of new Pals with the next update, has repeatedly ruled out an underwater biome, and prefers curated spin-offs over building a rapid-revenue metaverse.
- Palworld remains available on PC (Steam and Microsoft Store), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and Xbox One, and players should expect staged communications from Pocketpair with more concrete Side by Side details in the weeks ahead.