Palworld’s First Major Update, Sakurajima, Out Now — Here’s What It Does

ign.com:

‘Pokémon with guns’ crafting and survival game Palworld has its first major update since its record-breaking launch in January, adding a new island, new Pals, and much more.

Steam version 0.3.1 and Xbox version 0.3.1 are both out now. The patch brings with it the Sakurajima update; Sakurajima is the new island where players can take control of a tower protected by a new faction called The Moonflowers. The island is home to many new Pals.

There’s multiplayer-exclusive content, too, in the form of an area in the Desiccated Desert. An oil rig controlled by the Rayne Syndicate is now in the ocean (here you work together with friends to defeat powerful enemies and claim resources such as crude oil). You can extract crude oil by unlocking and placing a new building, the cruise oil extractor, in certain spots around the world. The new material, Plasteel, can be made from crude oil. This is used to craft new high-tier equipment and spheres.

Meanwhile, the level cap is raised to 55, with new technologies available and a new upper limit for Pal’s capture bonus (10 to 12). The new raid, Blazamut Ryu, features the strongest Dragon Pal in the game.

There’s a tease for a meteorite event: “Meteorites or supplies will fall from space sometimes!” Palworld developer Pocketpair said in the patch notes, below. “There may even be an unknown Pal from outer space too...!?”

There’s loads more to the Sakurajima update, including new items, new weapons, a new merchant, Tower Boss hard mode, new cosmetics including for Pals, new buildings, a new lockpicking feature, and many improvements and tweaks. The building system is reworked and improved so basic construction should now be “much more intuitive and smooth,” Pocketpair said.

Of note: the Xbox version of Palworld now has dedicated servers, one of the big points of difference between the game on Microsoft’s console and Steam. However, there is currently no crossplay, which means Xbox and PC players cannot play together. Hopefully this is a