Less than a week out from its launch in Early Access on Steam and Xbox, Palworld has proved itself to be a massive commercial success for developer Pocketpair and has dominated gaming discourse online since the weekend. Switch gamers can't access it on Nintendo's console, of course, but with its aesthetic parallels to Pokémon, it's been the main talking point for many of us as we await the first Nintendo Direct of the year and the inevitable Pokémon Presents showcase at the end of February.
Palworld's well-worn 'Pokémon-with-guns' descriptor, coupled with a very successful marketing campaign — seriously, it feels like this was Promoted in our feeds for the last decade — has led to downloads in the millions and fiery debate online, with legions of fans coming to its defence from allegations of plagiarism and asset theft. These accusations suggest that Pocketpair — who has form when it comes to making games which look an awful lot like other games — may have taken its search for inspiration too far in this case, with certain Pal models that appear too close to certain Pokémon counterparts to be coincidence.
The jury's out on that point at the time of writing, and for its part, Pocketpair is confident that it's on a firm legal footing. Beneath all the chatter, though, is a game which many people are playing and, apparently, enjoying. Having sampled the game on Xbox, and given its relevance to Nintendo and Pokémon fans, Team NL sat down to discuss what we make of Palworld and the circus around its release...
Palworld, then — what is it exactly?
GAVIN: I think we should start by establishing what type of game Palworld is. I’m sure most readers will have seen the furore and some pics and footage, but what is it exactly? Is it a 'Pokémon clone'? Ollie and Alana – you’ve both played the game via Game Pass. How would you describe it?
OLLIE: It’s a survival game, first and foremost. The Pokémon influences are certainly there, but there’s also a ton of Fortnite too; crafting, base-building, stuff like that.
ALANA: Yup, it’s exactly that. A blend of monster-catching, resource-farming, base-building, combat, crafting, etc. It’s a big mish-mash of popular genres in a very big world. 'Pokémon-with-Guns' is a little reductive (I don’t even have a gun yet!), but the monster catching is really just one aspect of a much bigger experience.
GAVIN: Looking at footage, it looks very much like Fortnite in terms of third-person controls and mechanics. Does it feel anything as good as Fortnite in practice, control-wise?
OLLIE: It’s been a little while since I’ve played Fortnite, but I would say yes. In short, there’s nothing here that hasn’t really been done before, whether it’s in Fortnite or other, similar survival games, but the core mechanics are mostly sound.
GAVIN: So it doesn’t immediately feel like some janky knockoff the moment you move the character.
ALANA: Not immediately. The character movement did immediately remind me of Fortnite, though. I think another point of comparison would be Ark, which is a little more survival-y. At least from the single-player content, Palworld is really just about fulfilling objectives and doing whatever the heck you want, basically. If it’s close to a Pokémon game, then Legends: Arceus is probably the closest comparison – the off-centre camera perspective, the way you can catch Pals, the crafting.
GAVIN: The comparisons to Pokémon (and we'll get to the sus monster designs) seem clear. Mechanically, though, are there any systems that feel like they’ve come from Pokémon rather than a crafting/survival game? I’m thinking of battles, evolving monsters, things like that.
ALANA: Combat is nothing like standard turn-based Pokémon at all. It’s basically like the auto-battling mechanic in Scarlet & Violet. You throw a Pal at another Pal, and it will attack, using skills and whatnot. You can also attack the Pals yourself. And from what I know, Pals don’t evolve at all. But you can breed them and fuse them together. I haven’t gotten far enough to do that, though.
GAVIN: I read that you can feed them to each other?
JIM: I read that you can eat them yourself. Also, put them to work? I haven’t played the game, but it certainly seems a little less cuddly than the Pokémon battling to which it was compared prior to release.
OLLIE: Yeah, you can kill them, eat them, feed them to each other, all that 'good' stuff. Bizarrely, you can actually catch human characters, too. There’s a vague ‘wanted’ system if you do so, but fundamentally, you can recruit human characters and have them work at your base, much like the Pals.
GAVIN: Hmm. It sounds like it’s touching on jokes we’ve made about the world of Pokémon since the very beginning around how Pokémon are treated, if it's okay to eat them, etc. Does it have a narrative thread beyond the basic setting? Does it use any of these subversions and in-jokes to say anything interesting, or anything at all? I think I probably already know the answer to this one…
OLLIE: Ha, no. At the start of the game, you name your island, create your character, and you’re dropped into its world with a list of objectives plonked in the top right corner. There’s really no overarching narrative to speak of — at least not one that's evident in the early stages — but I believe there is a nefarious group not too dissimilar from Team Rocket. We’ve mentioned a few games that Palworld can be compared to, and fundamentally, it’s really just a mish-mash of genres and games cobbled together. In terms of meaningful narratives, there’s nothing here.
So we’re not looking at a subtle commentary on the moral issues brought up by the world of Pokémon, then. Gotcha.
ALANA: The only thing, as Ollie mentions, is that enemy group – or groups? One of the main story objectives is to go around beating these top Pal trainers that stand at various towers across the world. And each of them are part of a different group or organisation. Why you have to fight them, what they stand for, etc. is of little consequence or meaning. It’s just an excuse to go around and fight ‘Gym Leaders’ or ‘Alpha Pokémon’.
GAVIN: So we’re not looking at a subtle commentary on the moral issues brought up by the world of Pokémon, then. Gotcha. To be fair, Pokemon narratives aren’t dynamite most of the time, but from the outside Palworld makes you wonder if there’s some hook or essence beyond the Pokemon-with-Guns novelty. It would seem not.
We should remember and mention, I suppose, that this is an Early Access release, so who knows what grand plans Pocketpair might have for the final product. The influx of cash from the game's early success could have a positive transformative effect — it's possible.
Comparisons, controversy, 'copying'
GAVIN: Moving on, Let’s delve into the controversy surrounding Palworld. Obviously, it’s a massively popular game, no doubt helped by it being on Game Pass, and those Pokémon comparisons have attracted a hell of a lot of attention, including allegations of asset copying and theft provoking a response from Pocketpair's CEO.
Now, I’m one of those OG 151 dinosaurs who effectively hibernated after Pokémon Yellow, but looking at some of the comparison pictures popping up on social media, with models and meshes that bear more than a passing resemblance to some well-known Pocket Monsters, what do we make of those comparisons?
OLLIE: Alana is probably more well-versed in Pokémon than me when it comes to individual creatures and designs, but from what I’ve seen so far, I think it would be foolish to look at the Pals and not come to the conclusion that the developer didn’t at least study Game Freak’s work closely. Now, I couldn’t say that they definitely copied or plagiarised anything, but they look too similar to be a coincidence.