Palworld is the second-biggest Steam game by concurrent players in the platform's history, an out-of-nowhere smash hit that's risen above the likes of Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, and Hogwarts Legacy to settle between Counter-Strike 2 and PUBG. It's an unlikely trifecta, but one that's united by one unlikely morsel: cooked chicken.
When Palworld overtook Dota 2's record, I realized that two of the top three games on Steam had chicken in common. In Palworld, it's mere moments before you're killing (and catching) oversized poultry, and not long before you're cooking Chikipi meet to stave off the demands of the hunger meter. In PUBG, the phrase "Winner Winner Chicken Dinner" was a bizarre stylistic choice offered as a prize to whichever team or player triumphed in the battle royale, and is now seen as iconic.
