A new survival game has been announced for Steam, with its trailer indicating a potential future launch on the Switch and PS5. Here's the thing, though... if you thought Palworld took a lot of inspiration from Pokémon, this one takes it to the next level.
Titled Pickmon and developed by PocketGame (strewth, even the dev name is similar to PocketPair!), its overall gameplay appears to have a lot more in common with Palworld than Pokémon, but when you take a closer look at the design of both the protagonist and the collectible creatures, it becomes immediately apparent that PocketGame shot more than a few quick glances at Nintendo's homework.
Let's start with the protagonist – do they remind you of anyone? Hopefully you did your best Churchill dog impression and nodded with an enthusiastic "ohh yes!", because Pickmon's protagonist is basically Link from Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The hair, the clothes... Next thing PocketGame will be telling us is that you start the game awakening from a 100-year slumber. At the very least, it looks like you'll spend a good deal of time traversing the world via a paraglider.
Then we've got the creatures which, much like Palworld before it, look about as close as possible to iconic Pokémon without actually being the exact same. We've got a cute little guy with yellow fur and black accents on the ears and tail, a monstrous boss that looks remarkable similar to Ceruledge, and much more.
To cap it all off, a supporting character even does the iconic 'Akira slide' on a motorbike. Though to be fair, Samus also did that in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond...
Look, games often take inspiration from one another, but this is just... come on, now. We're particularly surprised that PocketGame and publisher NETWORKGO seem to have a Switch release in their sights too. Frankly, we'd be surprised if Nintendo doesn't sue them into oblivion, let alone allow them to release Pickmon on the eShop.