A week after saying it was going quiet for the rest of the year, Palworld announces a crossover with the brilliant and bloodstained shooter Ultrakill

(Image credit: Pocketpair)

Only last week, Palworld developer Pocketpair announced that the hit survival game, which remains in early access, would be going quiet as it prepared for a full launch in 2026. Well well well… it looks like someone had a surprise up their sleeve, because today brought the announcement of an unexpected crossover, albeit with scant detail.

Palworld is collaborating with Ultrakill, a brilliant indie shooter by Arsi 'Hakita' Patala that's still in early access itself, and continuing to blow minds (the game sits at "overwhelmingly positive" on Steam with roughly 120K user reviews). Ultrakill is fast-paced, bloody, and constructed around five weapons and the intricate way their various fire modes can be comboed together. It also boasts the brilliant tagline: "Mankind is dead. Blood is fuel. Hell is full."

The announcement says that "collaboration gear and weapons from the cult-hit game Ultrakill are coming to Palworld!" Ultrakill's hardware is fantastic, and you'd expect there'll be some clever ways to get all your pals tooled-up and combo-ing merrily together.

Palworld's most recent high-profile crossover was with Terraria, which caused a big spike in players, so expect something similar for a collaboration that asks the question "will blood rain upon the Palpagos Islands?" You'd imagine it probably will.

There's no release date beyond "later this year," with Palworld also scheduled for a winter update (which Pocketpair has said won't be as big as the 2024 equivalent: but that was enormous.) Other than that, the developer's settling down to get it ready for the full release.

"Beyond just adding new content, there's a lot of cleanup that needs to be done before Palworld can exit early access," said Pocketpair community director Bucky last week. "It's no secret that Palworld has a lot of quirks and jank, and we want to take the time to properly address those before releasing the game. With that in mind, we plan to start this cleanup this year."

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

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