{
  "id": 15780208,
  "title": "Palworld Fans Crown Their Favorite Pal in New Poll as Winter Update Is Teased",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/20/palworld-fans-crown-their-favorite-pal-in-new-poll-as-winter-update",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-20T17:42:48.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "IGN",
    "slug": "ign",
    "url": "https://www.ign.com/articles/palworld-fans-crown-their-favorite-pal-in-new-poll-as-winter-update-is-teased"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Sekhmet, a kitty-shaped Pal, has been crowned as Palworld's homecoming queen, according to a new poll published by its creator, Pocketpair. The poll revealed that the feline Pal received the most votes, accumulating 49,637 votes from global players. Solenne and Chillet followed closely with 37,425 and 34,625 votes respectively, while Verdash, with its quirky green bouffant hairstyle, garnered only 1,479 votes, placing it at the bottom of the rankings. Pocketpair has additionally dropped a tantalizing hint about an upcoming update for winter titled \"Palworld: Side by Side.\" In this teaser, three human silhouettes were showcased, igniting speculation among fans about their identities. The leading theories suggest these figures could be Auri, Zoe, and Saya, all of whom were previously identified as top picks for the most popular characters in a Pocketpair poll and hold prominent roles within the game as faction leaders or tower bosses. Notably, Zoe was made a recruitable companion following the results of last year's poll. During an interview at Gamescom in August, Pocketpair's head of publishing and communications, John \"Bucky\" Buckley, alluded to the update's purpose, stating that they aimed to address a longstanding desire from fans. While Buckley refrained from making definitive statements about the update, he confirmed that the release timing was strategically chosen to avoid clashing with November's GTA 6 release. \"It's exciting for us at Pocketpair because we're doing something that people have wanted for a long time,\" he remarked. \"We kind of considered it for 1.0, but it would have just pushed the release back too far. And, you know, not to be cliché, everyone's saying it, but this year... something's happening later [in the year]... So we didn't want to go anywhere near the November kind of range. We're doing something that's really exciting, but it's not big... We're going to start the marketing on this soon. It's not a huge thing. You don't have to restart your game to experience it.\" For those planning to return to the Palpagos Islands, the update will introduce new Pals added in Palworld 1.0, alongside a guide to the game's bosses and an interactive map to navigate the world.",
  "summary": "Sekhmet is Palworld's homecoming queen, according to a new poll published by creator Pocketpair. The kitty-shaped Pal was voted the most popular by global players, scoring 49,637 votes.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}