Palworld left early access on July 10, 2026, three and a half years after its record-breaking launch. The 1.0 update is free for everyone who owns the game, and the player response has been enormous — Steam concurrents passed 470,000 on launch day and kept climbing past 700,000 the day after, putting Palworld back among Steam's most-played games.
If you run a dedicated server — or you're about to — here's what 1.0 actually changes on the server side, separated from the marketing.
The big one first: no save wipe
Existing worlds carry straight into 1.0. Your bases, Pals, breeding lines and player progress continue exactly where they were. If your server auto-updates on restart, the transition is a normal restart, not a migration.
That also means an existing co-op save can still be uploaded to a dedicated server the same way as before — nothing about the save format's portability changed.
What 1.0 adds to the game
The headline content, briefly, since it drives what your players will be doing:
- A new endgame built around the World Tree
- A new region that roughly doubles the explorable map
- 20+ new Pals to catch and breed
- Genetic Recombination — a deeper breeding system
- Official PvP and reworked tower bosses
- Structured story missions and ocean/offshore building
More endgame means longer sessions, bigger bases, and heavier breeding programs — all of which increase server memory pressure over time (more on that below).
New server-side settings in 1.0
Three additions matter for server configuration:
In-game voice chat. Off by default, enabled per-server, with configurable audible distance. Whether you want proximity voice on is now a server decision, not a mod.
Per-role guild permissions. Guild leaders can restrict who can build, dismantle, and invite — a big deal for public servers that previously relied on trust and rollbacks.
PvP mode defaults. With official PvP shipping in 1.0, servers get settings for the new mode rather than the old ad-hoc player-damage toggles alone.
Palworld's crossplay support (Steam, Xbox, PS5, Mac on one server) predates 1.0 and is unchanged — console players still join through the in-game community server browser rather than by IP.
What 1.0 did NOT include: server clustering
The most-hyped server feature — clustering, which would let multiple servers link into one connected world, ARK-style — did not ship in 1.0. The server binary contains cluster-related fields, but there is no supported way to configure it yet. We cover the details in our clustering explainer.
The memory leak survived 1.0
Long-running Palworld servers still accumulate RAM until performance degrades — rubber-banding first, crashes eventually. 1.0's performance work helps, but it does not eliminate the leak. The reliable fix remains a clean daily restart plus sensible settings; our memory leak guide covers exactly what works.
What server owners should do now
- Update to 1.0 — on Connect Hosting servers this happens automatically on the next restart.
- Review the new settings — decide on voice chat and PvP before your players ask.
- Check your RAM headroom — the new endgame grows worlds faster than early access did. See how much RAM a Palworld server needs.
- Keep daily restarts scheduled — the leak is still real.
Every server we deploy runs 1.0 from day one, with all 32 player slots on every plan and automated daily leak-protection restarts built in.
