Palworld Bravely Asks “What if Pokémon Had to Pay Rent?”
Two years ago one of my friends sent me a trailer for Palworld after being quickly won over by the concept of “Pokémon with guns.” I watched the trailer and assumed it was just going to be another open-world survival craft game with a funny concept built for memes, and quickly forgot about it until earlier this month. Now that I’ve dug more into it, I’m pretty sure there might be something interesting here.
After watching almost every video on developer Pocketpair’s channel, I’ve gone from dismissive to cautiously optimistic. The first trailer starts with a standard Pokémon game set up with running through fields, before transitioning into a third-person shooter and using the titular Pals as cover. It’s all very bizarre, but it’s hilarious watching a cutesy plant monster be forced to work in an arms-making factory. It’s the videogame equivalent of those Steamboat Willie and Winnie the Pooh horror movies that started cropping up after they hit the public domain.
With subsequent trailers it’s become clear that it’s closer to Ark Survival Evolved than a mainline Pokémon game. Where another game may have wiring, Palworld has electric Pals providing energy to generators. Instead of a fishing rod, we have an electric Pal shocking a lake and watching the dead water Pals float up to the surface. You can increase the strength of your Pals by harvesting the souls of other Pals.
Palworld sounds like a parody game, or maybe what PETA earnestly believes the Pokémon franchise is. Over half the comments on the game’s YouTube channel mention Pokémon in some capacity and it’s pretty obvious why. Some of these designs are eerily similar to existing Pokémon. One Pal resembles a fusion between Latias and Salamance. Tocotoco has the same color scheme as Xatu. Robinquil is Decidueye with an actual bow as opposed to shooting with its quills.
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