To call the launch of Palworld anything less than a success would be wrong. The game has topped the Steam charts for players all week and shows no signs of slowing down. The game was so popular on release that the multiplayer serves were unable to handle the amount of people trying to play with friends and went down shortly after release. With all this attention on the game, Pokemon fans quickly noticed something about the Pals’ design that made them feel all too familiar.
Palworld was released on both Game Pass and Steam for both PC and Xbox consoles and has been blowing up in the media after its seemingly inexistent coverage leading up to the launch of the game. The game features survival many staple survival and base automation elements all too familiar to gamers. But with the twist being what you use as a workforce in your base. Instead of machines for automation, you use the cute creatures you fight to the death and capture out in the world to do basic tasks around your base and keep everything running smoothly.
To “accidentally” create a complex model mesh with so near-exact proportions is practically impossible. To repeat that improbability throughout your roster… doesn’t pass the sniff test. #Palworld #Pokemon
(Media credit: @byofrog) pic.twitter.com/IiSEe7MCDq
— Eric Covington (@covingtown) January 22, 2024
"no guys you don't get it Palworld has only unique designs"
The literal first 57 Pals I find: pic.twitter.com/ppD1I1wbUn— MrCheeseTiger (@MrCheeseTiger) January 22, 2024
While many players have been enjoying their “Pokemon with guns” gameplay, others have been doing a deep dive into the design of the different Pals in Palworld. Many Pokemon fans are drawing connections between the Pal’s designs and the design of many different Pokemon and they are not happy about it. Many of them taking to Twitter to make posts like those seen above showing examples of this stolen design and calling on Nintendo or Palworld to take action about it.
These tweets were originally met with dismissal by being told that it is coincidental or that it is only a few Pals that share designs. But as time has passed, more Pals have been compared to Pokemon and each side is getting more dug in on their stance. While Pokemon fans are still calling for a change, players who are enjoying their time in Palworld have started to reply with various memes mocking the claims.
Palworld discourse in a nutshell: pic.twitter.com/G1jd6jZ13N
— Narwitz (@SophiaNarwitz) January 22, 2024
Why are so many of you like this today? Its wild xD
Palworld v Pokemon pic.twitter.com/wMvKOOT4Xc
— Command Line Vulpine (@Furry4Ever) January 22, 2024
After a long weekend or heated debate on Twitter, the Palworld Developer and CEO of PocketPair Takuro Mizobe spoke about the hot topic in an interview with Automation. Mizobe claimed that Palworld had passed an audit for any sort of copywriter infringement the game could face and that there had been no legal action taken against the game or studio so far. “We make our games very seriously, and we have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies.” Mizobe said.
The developer has instead insisted that Palworld does take inspiration from Pokemon, but the game is more similar to Ark: Survival Evolved rather than the constant Pokemon comparison that everyone is making. While this answer does provide a bit of insight into the burning question across the community, it also feels a bit lacking and deflective.
But until legal action is taken against Pocketpair or Palworld, the game seems like it will be around for a while. While this controversy has driven many more eyes to the game than it would have normally received, Palworld was already having massive success before the debate on design began. Many fans have cited that they couldn’t care less about the possible copyright infringement or even AI-generated content, all they wanted was a good game to be released and Palworld has delivered with a promise to add more content as time goes on.