Palworld 1.0 Server Update Guide (July 10, 2026)

Palworld 1.0 Server Update Guide

Last verified: July 11, 2026 (day two of 1.0). Announced at Summer Game Fest 2026; 1.0 is now live.

Palworld 1.0 is out now: it launched July 10, 2026, marking the game's exit from Early Access. Confirmed in the official changelog: the World Tree region opens, the new floating island Sunreach joins it and the map roughly doubles, 72 new Pals (287 total), and the new Awakening and Mutation systems. For dedicated servers 1.0 adds in-game voice chat and improved guild roles - but not a usable Server Clustering: it's absent from the changelog and from PalWorldSettings, though the 1.0 server binary does carry cluster groundwork (details below). The full breakdown is on our Palworld 1.0 feature reference; the wipe-or-keep decision is in its own guide. This page covers how to prepare your dedicated server for the transition.

Two things worth knowing going in: 1.0 is free for existing owners (the game stays $29.99), so every player on your server updates at no cost, and Palworld passed 40 million players ahead of launch. The spike is not hypothetical: launch night peaked at 472,769 concurrent players on Steam and kept climbing to 722,279 over the launch weekend - a top-15 all-time Steam peak. Pocketpair has also dated the first paid DLC, "Dawn of the Palpagos," for July 30, 2026, so plan for a second content bump about three weeks after launch.

The Palworld 1.0 map: Sunreach and the World Tree

The 1.0 map is the update's headline change, and it matters to server owners beyond sightseeing. Two new regions arrived: Sunreach, a floating archipelago of sky islands held aloft by Paldium, with its own environment and civilization unlike anything on the surface, and the World Tree - visible but sealed since Early Access launch - which finally opens as the endgame region where the main story resolves and where you gather the Radiant Gems that power Awakening.

Alongside the new regions, the existing Palpagos Islands were overhauled: 72 new Pals (287 total) spread across the whole map, and wild spawn distribution changed - several Pals no longer sit at their old fixed farming spots, so pre-1.0 location guides will point your players at empty ground. There is no in-game "1.0 map reveal" needed: existing worlds keep their progress, and the new regions simply appear in the unexplored parts of the map after the update.

For hosting, the practical takeaway is the one from the capacity section below: the explorable area roughly doubled, players scatter wider, and more loaded chunks mean more RAM and CPU per player than your pre-1.0 baseline. If your server sat near its memory ceiling before July 10, expect Sunreach and World Tree expeditions to push it over.

Pre-update checklist for server owners

1. Back up your world (restore-tested)

Before updating, take a full copy of your server's /Saved/ directory, including Level.sav, LocalData.sav, and the Players folder - and confirm the backup actually restores, not just that it exists. A major-version update is exactly when a silent-bad backup hurts. On Supercraft's Palworld server hosting, daily backups run automatically, but take a manual one immediately before you apply 1.0 regardless of host.

2. Expect a mod-compatibility window

An Early Access exit typically changes engine internals, so .pak and script-based mods built for the Early Access builds may break on 1.0. If your server depends on mods, plan to run vanilla for launch week rather than delay the update, and re-add mods as authors ship 1.0-compatible versions.

3. Stash your best Pals and clear old mods

Two prep steps players consistently recommend before a major update: move your best base Pals into the Global Pal Box so a save hiccup can't cost your rarest catches, and manually delete any old mod files - Pocketpair warns that disabling them is not enough, and stale mods can corrupt a 1.0 save.

4. Size up capacity for the doubled map

A map that roughly doubles in size, plus a launch-week population spike, means more memory and CPU headroom than your Early Access world needed. If you are near your current limits, give yourself room before launch day - our hardware requirements guide covers sizing.

Dedicated servers in 1.0: what shipped (and what didn't)

Server Clustering isn't a usable 1.0 feature yet. Pre-launch previews billed ARK-style linked servers as the marquee 1.0 dedicated-server feature, but it's absent from the official changelog and from PalWorldSettings, and Pocketpair hasn't published how to configure it. Our own inspection of the 1.0 server binary shows the groundwork did ship - it carries cluster fields (ClusterNode, ClusterGroupIndex, connection settings) - but there is no supported config path today. What your dedicated server did gain in 1.0: in-game voice chat (server-side and off by default - enable the toggle and tune the audible-distance settings in the server's world settings; not on WinGDK), improved guild roles with per-role permissions, adjusted default settings for the new PvP mode, and optimized server performance for higher player counts. For which platforms can share a server, see our Palworld crossplay guide.

Your existing config needs zero migration. We diffed the 1.0 settings template against the previous build: all 88 pre-1.0 PalWorldSettings options are intact and unchanged, so existing server configs run on 1.0 as-is. 1.0 adds 31 new option keys (119 total) - voice chat, PvP kill drops, building limits and more, all documented in our server settings reference. To generate a 1.0-ready config with the new keys pre-filled, use the free Palworld server settings generator - or paste your existing pre-1.0 file into the 1.0 Config Migration Doctor to carry your tuned values across.

Want to be online and listed for the launch wave? Rent a Palworld dedicated server with Supercraft - instant setup, daily backups, five regions - and have your 1.0 world up before July 10.