As multiplayer monster collecting game Palworld continues to record impressive sales numbers and break its own record for concurrent players, some less enthusiastic Pokémon fans have taken to social media to share how similar they think Palworld is to Pokémon.
'Pokémon with Guns' survival game Palworld – which was released as an early access game yesterday, January 19, and has already sold more than two million copies – but is now facing claims that its similarities to Pokémon are too great to be a coincidence.
“Reminder not to support Palworld,” one dissatisfied user wrote. x/twitter. “It's not even accurate about the thefts. How much did he steal?”
“I'm going to make a topic […] The Palworld design analysis, which attempts to figure out every Pokémon mixed together, added, before sharing a set of stunning images that show how similar some of Palworld's characters are to those in Pokémon.
Manage cookie settings
“The argument that there are so many Pokémon that you can't design monsters without accidentally copying at least one of them could be a valid point, but in this case, what they're doing is incredibly blatant,” artist LuxxArt added. “I haven't seen a single friend and I can't pinpoint exactly what Pokemon they took from him.
“I don't think they're trying to trick anyone into thinking Pals are Pokemon, I think the goal is mostly to draw attention away from rage. It's also laziness. Why come up with original designs for your game when you can steal from a successful IP?”
Manage cookie settings
Fans even found a tweet from Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe detailing how copyrighted images can be “passed” through AI to change them and “resolve” copyright disputes. Another shows that Mizobe is actually using images of the original Pokémon to show how the AI can create equivalent characters.
Neither developers Pocketpair nor The Pokémon Company have commented publicly on the alleged similarities.
Palworld sits in 10th place on Steam's “Most Played Games” list with 855,706 concurrent players on Steam alone (it was 11th this morning), which is more than even big players like Apex Legends, which has been a huge hit among us, and Valheim.
Earlier today, the team explained on social media that due to Palworld surpassing 700,000 concurrent players, it had to hold an “emergency meeting” with Epic Games to “add an update to the Epic Games backend.”
To watch it for yourself, check out Zoe's excellent early access review, which is included for your viewing pleasure above.
“Web specialist. Lifelong zombie maven. Coffee ninja. Hipster-friendly analyst.”
