Palworld is an intergalactic hit on Steam and Xbox and it ended up attracting the attention of Nintendo and the Pokemon Company who communicated about the situation.
Palworld is the new event game at the start of the year, not to mention viral. The one that we have had fun calling for several months the “Pokemon with guns”, was released on PC and Xbox in early access only a few days ago and several million players have already flocked to it. Japanese studio Pocketpair claims to have recorded more than 6 million players in less than a week, and on Steam alone. It is enormous. And at the time of writing, Palworld is still the most played game on the platform with nearly 1.2 million simultaneous players, double that of Counter-Strike 2 at present.
Pokemon really pulls out the guns, Palworld in the sights
A real phenomenon which was also marked by a very big controversy. Many people have indeed noted similarities with Nintendo’s Pokemon series. If inspiration is obvious, for certain creatures, we could almost speak of outright aspiration of ideas. Some monsters could well be evolutions of existing Pokémon, while others just seem to be the mash-up of some little Gamefreak creatures. And that doesn’t go down well with a few people who don’t hesitate to be virulent with the game and the studio. The incredible stories of Palworld’s development are not helping Pocketpair to get its feet wet, many questions remain unanswered.
And all this aroused the curiosity of the Pokemon Company, very close to Nintendo. The firm (not to say “them”) is already renowned for being very (too?) fussy about its intellectual properties, so much so that it already leaves no chance for fangames or mods from lovers of the license. It’s all fun and games at the Pokemon Company and now the giant officially has Palworld in its crosshairs. The company announced the news with a very straightforward press release. She claims, without mentioning the game in question, to have received “many alerts” concerning “the game from another company that was released in January 2024”. The company claims to have given no authorization for the use of intellectual property or Pokemon assets for this famous game, and declares that it has “intent to investigate and take appropriate action to remedy any acts of infringement of intellectual property rights relating to Pokemon”.
A mix of genres that is a hit, but which does not please everyone
Palworld is in the firm’s sights and we should certainly have news soon. Pocketpair’s game clearly doesn’t hide its inspirations: Pokemon, ARK… but for some, that’s too much. Aside from the design of certain creatures, it is however good to remember that Palworld has absolutely nothing to do with Pokemon for everything else. The game is more similar to an ARK in its game mechanics and therefore puts survival and basic development at the center of its experience. Collecting monsters is of course part of the experience too, but absolutely not in the same vein as Pokémon. It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to convince Nintendo and the Pokemon Company to let the game live in its corner. To be continued.