Originally intended to be Pokemon with weapons, Palworld ended up being released to the market and felt more like a RUST or an ARK, but with Pokémon elements.
Beware of mobile versions: they are a scam
[Warning] There is no Palworld application for phones. Apps using names and product images such as "パルワールド" and "Palworld" are appearing on the AppStore and Google Play, but they are not affiliated with our company in any way.
Now, Palworld developer Pocketpair has just issued a warning to players that there is no official mobile version of Palworld, and that any listing using the name or images of Palworld is not affiliated with Pocketpair.
Pocketpair also warns against installing any of these games and is working with Google and Apple to prevent clones of the game from reaching the stores of these operating systems.
Pocketpair also warns Palworld players that downloading any of these unaffiliated applications can result in personal information leakage or fraud.
At the time of writing this article, Palworld is only available on Steam, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox One, and Xbox Series. The Xbox One version is very rough, as reported by Digital Foundry here.
If you want to play it, it seems that the PC version on Steam is the best version of the game right now, what we don’t know is if it’s a strategy to sell more copies of the game or if the developers don’t control the Xbox ecosystem. Have you played Palworld yet?
Palworld continues to break records, this time ranking among the most played games in the history of Steam, surpassing even renowned titles like Counter-Strike.
Palworld is news in the newspaper. For good, for bad, or usually, both. It’s something we have to get used to, because it’s as successful as it is controversial. And this time, we have to focus on the first. Because it has surpassed a milestone that not even its creators would have expected to achieve.
With a peak of 1,853,216 players on January 23rd, Palworld has become the second game with the most simultaneous players in the history of Steam. Surpassing Counter-Strike 2, and only surpassed by the staggering numbers of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, which stands at 3,257,248, Palworld is thus cemented as the first big success of 2024. Something that is confirmed with over eight million copies sold in less than 6 days.
Takuro Mizobe, CEO of Automaton, the studio behind Palworld, is very optimistic about these figures and says in an interview with Automaton that although the foundations of the game are already established, it is only 60% finished. Among their future plans is to include a PvP mode, which they see as very difficult to do well, but they will work to do it correctly. Therefore, considering the figures and the statements of the company’s CEO, it does not seem that the news about Palworld will cease soon.
The controversy regarding the similarities of PalWorld’s pals with Pokémon continues, and several Twitter users have shown that the similarities are… too much.
Palworld has been a sales success. It has a number of simultaneous players that competes only with the most played games in history. And controversy accompanies it and intensifies more and more. Because although it is something that has been happening since its launch last Friday, according to the information that has been collected, small investigations have been emerging that put into question the idea that Palworld is a mere parody. Because there are reasons to think otherwise.
The person who has kicked off with a more serious and in-depth research work is Cecilia Fae on Twitter. Creating a thread comparing all the pal, the monsters of Palworld, which bear any resemblance to any kind of Pokémon, she has sought to determine to what extent they can be defined as ripoffs of the Nintendo franchise. What she has found is that out of 111 pal, at least 63 can be defined somewhere between plagiarism and suspicious similarity. An alarming number, considering that it represents more than half of the game’s creatures.
In fact, the evidence has only been rapidly piling up from this point on. Twitter user byofrog is making a series of short videos demonstrating how the base model of some pals is practically identical to that of certain Pokémon. What does this mean? Well, as several professional artists have pointed out to Video Games Chronicle, it is likely that they used the models to slightly modify them and then paint over them, thus creating their own monsters. Something that falls directly into the field of plagiarism.
In fact, one of the artists who spoke anonymously to VGC was very explicit about it. “You can’t, under any circumstances, accidentally have the same proportions in multiple models from another game without extracting the models. Or at the very least, meticulously copying them first.” Something that, if it is confirmed that the models from both games come from the same source, puts Pocketpair, the developer of Palworld, in a tricky situation.
Regarding all this, Pocketpair’s CEO, Takuro Mizobe, has preferred to keep a low profile. Stating that they have passed legal analysis and that no other company has taken legal action against them, he has pointed out that “we have no intention of violating the intellectual property of other companies.”
Something that, in turn, may change in the near future. At least if The Pokémon Company’s policies haven’t changed over time. Because according to Don McGowan, who led the company’s legal team between 2008 and 2020 in Game File, journalist Stephen Totilo’s video game newsletter, “this looks like the typical senseless plagiarism that I had to see thousands of times a year when I was Chief Legal Officer of Pokémon”. Adding that “I’m surprised it has come this far”.
As Stephen Totilo has mentioned in this same newsletter, Mizobe doesn’t like the comparisons between Palworld and Pokémon and appreciates when journalists point out that these similarities are superficial. Unfortunately, it seems that these similarities may be much deeper than they appear. And even though he doesn’t like it, it seems bound that we will continue to talk about Palworld with the name Pokémon next to it for a long time. Especially while the extreme and practically impossible similarities between their models are being clarified.
Palworld, the Pokémon with guns, has not only achieved several sales and user records on Steam but also stirred several controversies on social media… and rightfully so.
No one ever knows what the next big phenomenon will be. Nor how long it will last or if it will be embraced enthusiastically. If someone knew, they would be swimming in money, because they would know the magic formula to create successes. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exist, and even when it’s evident that something will work, it’s impossible to predict if it will work in the short, medium, or long term, or if a portion of the audience will react negatively to its success. Something that Palworld is currently experiencing in real time.
While it is true that the opinions of the company’s CEO and Pocketpair’s own practices do not help Palworld, there is currently no evidence that they have used generative AI to create the game’s assets. It also cannot be proven conclusively that they have plagiarized Pokémon designs. However, due to their track record, the suspicions of many users are more than justified. And considering the success that Palworld is achieving, although it is true that a portion of the audience seems not to care, it also seems evident that this controversy is far from ending silently just because it sells well.
‘Palworld’ is a twist on the classic game but much more violent, much more capitalist, much more terrible. And we only have to wait until January 19 to try it.
When Game Freak made the first Pokémon, they forgot something that could have changed everything: giving machine guns to Pikachu to take out the rest of the creatures to the rhythm of “Pika Pika”. Now, many years later, we finally have the solution: ‘Palworld’ is a twist on the classic game but much more violent, much more capitalist, much more terrible. And we only have to wait until January 19th to try it out.
The downside, depending on who you ask, is that it will be an exclusive for Xbox One that will go straight to the Game Pass from day one, so not everyone will be able to play it. But it’s worth it: your Pokémon, called “buddies” here, can do everything from working to dying in your factory to being enjoyed as a delicacy or sold to the highest bidder.
No one knows if this game will be good, but we do know one thing: the bugs will have guns and machine guns to use during combat because they can kill each other. Goodbye to the “fainting” of the originals: here we go all out. But, in addition, you will not play alone, but in a multiplayer of up to 32 people with whom you can build bases, enter dungeons and fight against gigantic final bosses.
At the very least, there is no doubt that upon its release it will be a huge success that may continue over time, when they add even more “colleagues” through DLC. There are only two real possibilities: either it is a fantastic satire of Pokémon or it is completely incomprehensible and we will forget about it in two days. Personally, I want to believe… but they don’t make it easy.
Palworld continues to show more of the game, proving that what Pokémon really needed was nothing more than submachine guns.
Pokémon has had its ups and downs over the years, but one thing it has never done is add machine guns, slavery, or the ability to capture Pokémon with punches — something that Palworld has introduced. Developed by Pocket Pair, the creators of the equally intriguing Craftopia, Palworld is an open-world game where players can capture Pokémon-like creatures and use them to battle, capture other creatures, and craft items.
The game will be released in early access in January 2024 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X, and Series S. Will the blend of open-world, survival, resource gathering, Pokémon, and shooter mechanics work? It’s impossible to know. But what is clear is that Palworld is something completely different from anything we’ve seen before.
