Creature-catching game Palworld – the cheerfully macabre survival game that came out of nowhere in 2024 and has sold 40 million copies despite being roundly berated and, indeed, taken to court by Uncle Nintendo for riffing rather flagrantly on Pokémon – launches out of early access today. It’s been a journey! Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the industrial exploitation of Kingpacas.
Palworld earned attention early on via the simple but effective gambit of taking creatures who look like Pokémon and forcing them to work in assault rifle factories, thereby taunting Pokémon lovers to confront the animal rights argument simmering inside their favourite franchise. It consolidated the morbid pull of that imagery by being a third-person base-building survival game – turns out, a lot of players have dreamed of a Pokémon game in that genre. Then it launched into early access and proved absorbing and rather soulless.
Back in January 2024, Katharine Castle (RPS in peace) described the initial version as “base building junk food”, noting that “Palworld isn’t really that interested in being an actual Pokémon-like, or at least not in the same way as games like Cassette Beasts, Coromon or TemTem are”. The game has grown a fair bit since, with new islands, space Pals, and licensed collaborations. I’m not sure any of that necessarily makes it any more gripping, but there’s certainly a lot of Stuff to plough through now. A lot of ways to abuse the fanatical loyalty of fluffy animals with big eyes.
The game’s early access evolution has run in parallel to the legal skirmish twixt developers Pocketpair and Nintendo. We asked a lawyer whether Palworld’s monster designs infringe on Nintendo’s a couple of years ago, and were informed that no, they do not. Nintendo’s lawyers appear to have told them the same – the Japanese publisher ultimately opted to sue Pocketpair for infringing on patents for certain game mechanics, in a crackpot effort to exert ownership of such niche concepts as “flying mounts”.
Pocketpair conceded some ground, removing the ability to summon Pals with a thrown Palsphere or use them for gliding. But these reversals haven’t blunted Palworld’s success: the devs have earned enough moolah to enter the world of publishing and release a spin-off cardgame. They’re also now making a Palworld farming sim, announcing it swiftly after the reveal of Nintendo’s own Pokémon husbandry spin-off Pokopia. Do a game about some kind of ace pilot called Starferret next, Pocketpair. Do a game about a giant orangutan called Wonky Bong.
Nintendo’s lawsuit, meanwhile, looks set them to bag them enough compensation to buy a small garage outside London (data source: my increasingly desperate midlife Zoopla searches). But then, making money from the lawsuit wasn’t really Nintendo’s goal: they’re out to thwart the dilution of Pokémon’s brand by imitators, and I imagine they’ve deterred a few other developers from following in Pocketpair’s footsteps.
According to Pocketpair, the 1.0 release will launch around 4.30am UK, 5.30am CEST, and 12:30pm Japan on Friday 10th July – or if you’re Stateside, 8:30pm PT and 11:30pm ET on Thursday 9th July. 27 pages of patch notes are promised. You may wish to uninstall your mods before downloading, if you haven’t played for a while.