What is Palworld? Palworld is an upcoming open-world action adventure game that has Pokemon-like monster collection mechanics, but with guns.

What is Palworld? An Overview

Palworld is an upcoming open-world multiplayer survival crafting game set to come out this 2022. In this game, players befriend and collect mysterious Pokemon-like creatures called “Pals,” fighting, building, farming, and working in factories alongside them. Palworld is being developed by Pocket Pair, a video game studio that previously developed another open-world multiplayer survival crafting game but with fewer pocket monsters features – Craftopia. So, at least they have the groundwork for open-world multiplayer survival crafting games already covered. But is the game itself going to be just fine?

Palworld has received notoriety for being the “open-world Pokemon game with guns.” Just based on the game’s official trailers, that’s pretty much the kind of impression you’ll get from the game. It’s an over-the-shoulder shooter game with a lot of mysterious monsters, but also bad guys with guns. Some of the footage in the trailers also show how your character could apparently raid factories (that apparently produce weapons?) and shoot at the factories’ workers, who defend themselves with semi-automatic rifles. If that sounds like a very dark, twisted version of Pokemon, then you’d be surprised at how dark this game goes further.

Interacting with your Pals

Palworld lets you interact with your pet pals in more ways than Pokemon would allow you to. Unlike in Pokemon, this game lets you interact directly with your pals. In fact, you can do more than just interact with your pals. In Pokemon, there are a lot of references on how Pokemon could end up becoming food for people or how they work arm in arm with humans, but we rarely get to see these happen in the games or for the player to partake in these activities. However, in Palworld, things could get more graphic.

Straight from Palworld’s Steam page, it says:

“On your adventures in Palworld, you can befriend Pals and explore the vast world happily together.
You can sell them, butcher them to eat, give them hard labor, pillage, rob and exercise complete mayhem but this is completely up to the players to make adult decisions like these since the laws in this world prohibit such activities. Just don’t get caught!”

Palworld also has analogs to legendary Pokemon, and in this world, these creatures are treated by the wider world with way more sense than in Pokemon:

“Endangered species of Pals live in the hunting prohibited area. If you sneak in and catch them, you’ll get tons of money! It’s only illegal if you get caught.”

These rare Pals can be bred with other Pals to raise stronger Pals, inheriting traits from their parents.

Finally, you can work with your Pals through farming and factory work. Some Pals can be farmed and their products can be eaten. Then, you can build factories to automate tasks and production that you need for survival; you can even make your Pals work in these factories so that you can produce more materials faster.

Dark, Darker, Darkest Pokemon

Pocket Pair appears to be embracing Palworld’s darker, much edgier treatment of relationships between humans and Pals. Straight from the Steam Store page, again, are statements like:

“This world is full of dangers such as food shortages, harsh weather, and illegal poachers. You must be prepared to do anything if you want to survive. You may even need to consume Pals sometimes…”

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“Do you want to build a pyramid? A spaceship? A garden? Maybe just a house? You can have a large number of Pals work on the construction. Don’t worry, labor laws won’t be applied to Pals, feel free to work them into the ground.”

“Automation is essential for your factory production since your life must maintain a happy and carefree style. That’s when the Pals come to do the manual work for you. Build a factory and place Pals in it. They will work forever as long as they’re fed, until the end of their lifetime or beaten to a pulp by the factory boss. The meaner the factory boss, the quicker you get results or quicker your Pals reach their destiny?”

“With Pals, you’ll be safe in dangerous areas. If you are in danger, you use Pals to cover your escape! They’ll give their lives to protect you without even thinking twice.”

Hopefully, the game has more to offer than its edgy content – that it’s not just trying to be edgy for the sake of being edgy and riding its notoriety for views. Hopefully, the game doesn’t end up being one of the meme games that are “so bad they’re good.” To be fair, the game seems to have some potential, but the trailers still show a lot of jank. By the time this game gets released, all these issues should already be fixed.

Still looking forward to this game, though.