Palworld: The divisive ‘Pokémon with guns’ game

Catch ’em all or kill ’em all? Palword is the craze in gaming as of late but not all of the talk around is it positive.

Have you heard of Palworld? Maybe you know it better as “Pokémon with guns.”

Palworld is the latest game to join the creature-collection category. However, it subverts everything you know about the genre and it might be more accurate to call it an open-world survival game with creature-collection mechanics instead.

In the game, you capture beasts called Pals and force them into serving you using guns and violence to build your base and resources. Although the Pals are pretty adorable, the game is a far cry from Pokémon‘s wholesome approach. Pals are handy in combat when you have to fight off the Syndicate and other evil Pal trainers who try to murder you and you can even cook and eat your Pals in a pinch.

Since the game’s early access release on January 19, it has been smashing records and topping charts. Palworld has recorded the fifth-highest peak concurrent player count on Steam with 1,291,967 online at the same time, overtaking Cyperbunk 2077, and is currently the most-played game on Steam. The game’s servers are crashing trying to keep up with the amount of players.

The game devs, Pocketpair, said that it has sold over five million copies in three days, rivaling Marvel’s Spider-Man (3.3 million copies in three days), God of War (3.1 million copies in three days), and The Last of Us 2 (four million copies in three days).

Despite its success, Palworld has been the center of controversy. Many people have pointed out similarities between the Pal’s designs with Pokémon. Tweets placing Pals side-by-side with similar Pokémons have been floating around, and some people are even saying “90% of them are definitely a copy of existing Pokémon.” While some think that Nintendo and the Pokémon Company don’t need fans to protect them, others are drawing comparisons because they’re disappointed by the lack of originality and creativity.

I don’t got any hate currently against PalWorld but we can’t deny that A LOT of these designs were ripped from Pokemon, some almost identical https://t.co/iUHixSrqDx pic.twitter.com/mNUtzUOADO

— Bun (@GodmasterBun) January 19, 2024

Some, however, are taking it a step too far. Pocketpair’s CEO, Takuro Mizobe, and the company’s community manager have revealed that the devs are getting death threats for their game. The two have spoken up against the threats the company is receiving as well as the “outlandish claims” and “slanderous comments.”

In response to the plagiarism accusations, Mizobe stated that Palworld has passed all legal reviews in an interview with Automation. While Palworld was indeed inspired by Pokémon, as most if not all creature-collection games are, he says that Pocketpair’s game is closer to Studio Wildcard’s Ark: Survival Evolved with shared action and survival mechanics.

“We make our games very seriously,” Mizobe said, “and we have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies.”

Regardless, Palworld has been receiving positive reviews for its smooth gameplay and intuitive mechanics. Would you give it a try?

(Images: Pocketpair via YouTube)