Within just a month into 2024, a new video game has taken the world by storm. Despite only being in early access, Palworld has quickly garnered millions of downloads within its first day of release. The game was developed by an independent gaming company named Pocket Pair. The inspirations for Palworld are evident through its vibrant gameplay, drawing ideas from Pokemon, Ark Survival Evolved, and even Rust. The phrase “Pokemon but with guns” has been coined in regards to Palworld, no doubt adding to the hype behind the games release.
Palworld is a survival game centered around creatures named Pals. The player can navigate a vast landscape, collecting Pals and fighting against other Pal trainers. The survival aspect of Palworld is made interesting with the utility of these Pals. For example, you can use fire type Pals to start furnaces, or water types to maintain crops. Using the Pals for manual labor not only incentivizes collecting more creatures, but it makes collecting resources and building go by much faster.
Clayton Chadwick, a teacher at West Potomac HS, gave his opinion on the game,
“I think in a lot of survival games, you have to deal with the tedious management of your base and other survival aspects, but Palworld automates it for you through the Pals, and I think that makes it more fun.”
Many of these Pals bear a striking resemblance to creatures from Pokemon. They look so similar in fact, that Nintendo released a statement around the release of the game. While not specifying Palworld specifically, the president of Nintendo, Shuntaro Furakawa made his stance clear,
“We will take appropriate action against those that infringe against our intellectual properties,” Furukawa stated in the latest Nintendo Q&A.
As of February 29th, Nintendo has yet to take legal action against the game. Regardless, Palworld has vast potential for further development. Pocket Pair has found a great amount of success even though the game is still in its early stages.