PK XD

Is PK XD safe for kids?

PK XD is safer to talk in than most online worlds, and less private than it looks. It is an open world where children build avatars, decorate houses, hatch pets and play mini-games alongside strangers, a Brazilian answer to Roblox with more than 100 million downloads on Google Play. Its best safety decision is the chat: every message is picked from preset phrases, so a stranger cannot type a question or ask for a phone number. Its weak points are the business around it. The game tracks players for advertising, sells random pets for gems and runs ads.

We score it 56/100, a point above Roblox (55) overall but for the opposite reasons: PK XD is much better on contact with strangers and worse on privacy. Pretend-play games with no shared world, such as Avatar World (69) and Toca Boca World (73), score higher.

How the chat works

Afterverse's community rules say the chat is "closed and limited to pre-determined phrases" for all text, public and private. Photo upload is not allowed. Players can mute or block another player's messages, report a profile, delete friends so they cannot visit, or simply move to another world. Reports go to a moderation team.

The gaps sit around the chat rather than in it. Usernames and pet names are free text behind a word filter, and the privacy policy warns that children may put their real names in them. Strangers in the same world can send friend requests, and friends can visit a player's house. The terms also warn about players posing as PK XD staff who offer gems in return for a password. A private world comes with the paid XD Plus subscription.

What the game collects, and who gets it

More than a children's game should. Apple's privacy label lists usage data as used to track you across other companies' apps, and links purchases, user and device IDs, product interaction, advertising data and email to the player. Google Play's form says device IDs and app activity are shared with other companies for advertising, and that approximate location, name and email are collected.

The partner list explains why. Afterverse names AdMob, Unity Ads, ironSource, Meta Audience Network, Liftoff, Mintegral and Pangle as advertising partners, plus AppHarbr, an ad-quality filter, and Firebase, Meta, Singular and CleverTap for analytics. The policy, updated on 23 September 2026, says marketing data is shared only with consent, that a parent's consent is needed where the law requires it, and that Afterverse does not sell personal data. Consent can be withdrawn on the PK XD privacy page.

Security is the other soft spot. Google Play's data safety form, filled in by the developer, says data is not encrypted in transit, while the privacy policy claims encryption in transit and at rest. One of the two is wrong, and we score the risk of the store answer. Accounts use an email and password, or Apple or Google sign-in, with no two-step login that we could find. We found no bug bounty and no reported breach.

Random pets and the age-rating puzzle

Pets hatch from pet pods at random, in five rarities from common to legendary, and "super" and "mega" pods raise the odds, according to the PK XD help centre. The odds are shown in the Pet Shop. Google Play's rating carries the label "In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)". Gems for premium items sell for $1.49 to $9.99 a pack on the US App Store, and a monthly XD Plus subscription costs $4.99 or $5.99.

That is why the ratings disagree so much. The US App Store rates PK XD 4+. Google Play rates it Everyone 10+. In Brazil, both stores show a Ministry of Justice rating of 16, and the App Store gives online purchases as the reason. Brazil's ECA Digital law, in force since 17 March 2026, bans loot boxes in games aimed at or likely used by children, and age-assurance enforcement by the data protection authority ANPD is due from January 2027. We found no action against PK XD under it so far.

Ownership and track record

PK XD launched in 2019 under Movile's PlayKids, and Afterverse Games in Campinas runs it. On 22 October 2026 Wildlife Studios, the maker of Sniper 3D, bought PK XD and other Afterverse games for an undisclosed sum. Both companies say Afterverse keeps developing and operating the game. We found no fine, order or published regulator review of PK XD in Brazil, the US, the EU or Turkey.

How to set up PK XD for a child

1. Register the account with a parent's email, and tell your child no one from PK XD will ever ask for the password.
2. Turn on Ask to Buy on iPhone or purchase approval in Google Play, and decide whether gem packs are allowed at all.
3. Choose a username and pet names with no real name, school or city in them.
4. Show your child how to block, report and remove friends, and check the friends list now and then.
5. To stop ad tracking, withdraw consent at app.playpkxd.com/privacy and refuse tracking when the iPhone asks.

How we scored it

Regulatory record (87) is the strongest factor, with no fines but also no regulator review. Privacy (46) is the weakest, because the game tracks players for advertising through seven ad networks despite a large child audience. Security (52) reflects a store form that says data is not encrypted in transit and no two-step login. Scams and harmful content (58) balances a closed phrase chat against random-item sales, ads and ratings that run from 4+ to 16.