Very few games come out with as big as a bang as Palworld did when it launched on Early Access late last week. Sure, there has been attention to the game prior to its release, but without a large marketing effort backing it or even many people dismissing the game as a scam or as an asset flip, Palworld couldn't have launched any better than it actually did. So far, the game's already experienced dramatic success that there might be little point in writing a review to discuss its merits, given how people have already made their decisions around the game after all. But we're still releasing our Palworld review to help anyone else who is still on the fence, discussing Palworld's gameplay, story, graphics, music, and sound design to appraise the game and give it (an Early Acces) review score.
Palworld Review: What is Palworld?
Palworld is an open-world action survival game that launched on PC through Steam Early Access and on Xbox One and Xbox Series X through Game Pass on January 19, 2024, developed and self-published by Japanese indie developer Pocket Pair, better known previously for their other voxel-based crafting game Craftopia. The game's objective is to capture creatures called Pals, fill your Paldex, construct bases, explore dungeons, raid bases, and engage in boss battles in boss battle towers scattered throughout the game world. The game takes heavy inspiration from multiple games, including Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and ARK: Survival Evolved and the developers unabashedly wear these inspirations on their sleeves. Still, the game successfully mashes together different game ideas and prevents itself from being too bloated or featuring game mechanics that don't make any sense in its own ecosystem.
The game is meant to be played with dozens of people together on private and public servers, but it also allows players to explore the island of Palpagos on their own in a single-player game mode. Each player's character is tied to the server, so progress doesn't carry over between servers. The cool thing about Palworld is that it's very approachable even for those who have no idea how to play survival crafting games. It doesn't have a good tutorial section nor does it have very good gameplay scaffolding but with all of the ways the developers allowed players to customize their servers' difficulties in almost every way possible, making it easy for players to create safe servers with very easy progression. This isn't special to Palworld, as many other survival crafting games also allow this, but it's worth noting here since Palworld's overwhelming popularity suggests that many of its players are coming on board with Palworld being their first survival crafting game, so kudos to them for that.
Palworld Gameplay
Palworld's core gameplay loop is as addicting as most well-crafted survival crafting games are, and well past its shock value of using Pokemon-looking creatures as workers and battle companions, the gameplay is actually par for the course for a survival crafting game. You gather materials, craft gear, weapons, and tools, build a base, defend it from raids, raid other bases, and rinse and repeat as you try to get to the next technology tier and improve your materials, tools, defenses, traps, and equipment. What makes the game less grindy, apart from the aforementioned ways to make the game less grindy through server settings, is the ability to assign your pals to different tasks in the base, automating many of the game's more tedious tasks, like mining for stone and chopping wood for lumber. Even the grindy crafting can be overcome by catching biped pals and having them work on crafting benches with their hands.
What sets Palworld apart from your usual survival crafting game are the pal-specific gameplay mechanics. While other games of the genre allow you to befriend creatures or people to turn them into companions, Palworld lets you collect a whole lot of them, complete with a glossary of creatures, ways to improve and breed your pals, and the ability to have up to five of them with you while you explore. The ability to ride your pals as modes of transport is inspired by games like ARK, but the nature of the game allows you to ride birds, dragons, and other flying creatures which arguably makes this mechanic much more fun than usual.
The game also has boss battles for you to partake in. Right now, these battles still feel like window dressing and don't really do much to advance the game at all. They almost feel optional had it not been part of the game's tutorial quests. In fact, you can go about your entire Palworld experience without ever trying one boss fight. These are engaged in through what they call Syndicate Towers, which works like raid dungeons where up to four different players can join in an instance. While they do provide some challenge, these boss battles are easy to beat as long as you have a suitable pal to battle with, nevermind if you're just carrying a bat heading into one. The rewards for beating Syndicate Towers do help you unlock new cool technology, but there are other ways to collect these technology points to render the Syndicate Towers optional. They provide a fun battle at the very least, but they don't feel in any way special yet like how boss battles are supposed to feel in video games.
Apart from the Syndicate Towers, there are also raid bosses that are similar to raid bosses you fight in your typical MMORPG. You get spawned into a large room with your guildmates and get to fight a giant-sized pal that is usually exclusively available in that dungeon. This gives you access to extra powerful pals, or even pals of a different elemental affinity that is available for the regular version of the pal. Some of these giant-sized pals can also be seen in certain parts of the overworld, although they usually are just pals with bigger models and higher stats. Rather comical is the developers' decision to keep these oversized pals' model size even after you catch them, so you can actually enjoy having these gigantic creatures strolling on your base or coming with you in your adventures.
It is actually polished as well for a game launching in Early Access, with bugs and glitches here and there like a survival crafting game in Early Access is wont to do. There have been reports of corrupted saves and we've also experienced one of our guildmates not being able to revive after getting downed in one instance, but throughout our personal playthroughs, the bugs and glitches have been minimal and not game-breaking.
Palworld Story
Perhaps Palworld's greatest weakness is its story or the lack thereof. But it's not completely lost and past saving at this point. There is a backbone lore that the game has that it struggles to tell – a story that you'll barely feel if you jumped straight into a multiplayer server and spawned in a different spawn point than the game's designated newbie section. Its story is currently told in a disjointed manner through journal entries you could (or would not) bump into during your travels. While there appears to be hints of the developers trying to strategically place these journal entries in such a way that you'll naturally discover them as you progress through the game, it's been wildly ineffective and you could completely miss them if you weren't looking for them in the first place.
While it definitely exists, the game's plot isn't exactly compelling enough for anyone to have anyone actually go out looking for them. Aside from the biggest completionists in gaming, collecting these journal entries is probably at the bottom of everyone's to-do lists in the game. As you collect them also, you'd be treated to very short journal entries that give you a background of what the Palpagos Island is, its supposed secrets, and how things came to be in this world, but they're not necessary to enjoy the game nor do they, in my opinion, add a lot to the overall experience.
As an Early Access game, this is par for the course, but we wish that its story could have been handled better. It doesn't take much to get invested in this game, but it will have way better longevity if there's an actual hero's journey for the player to follow and not just mindlessly build bases for fun.
Palworld Graphics
Palworld's smooth-surfaced and colorful graphics also isn't so bad at all. The game's models are very well made and some pals have great designs that I think would have their cult followings if the game's popularity is sustained. The world's filled with what feels like generic models, however, and the trees, rocks, and everything else on the terrain feel very at home in a survival crafting game, for better or worse. What I mean is – everything looks generic and uninteresting. That being said, the game's biomes do feel like biomes, with correct models that sell the locales' look and feel.
The character creation tool is also deliberately made to allow players to look as silly as they want to be – and this sort of irreverence lends a lot of charm to the game. It doesn't take itself too seriously and that's felt from all of the game's design choices, and that's for the better. A game like this cannot thrive if it takes itself too seriously, so a lighthearted tone is appropriate, even when touching on some dark topics across the game.
In terms of graphics lending to gameplay, the game's color pallets, special effects, lighting, and use of light sources have been utilized well enough to allow players to intuitively understand gameplay mechanics.
One particular issue I have with the game's graphics not lending well to gameplay is the appearance of dungeon entrances in the game. They are hard to find – which might or might not have been a deliberate design choice – but finding raid dungeons is definitely a challenge in the game because of how indistinct these entrances look in the overworld.
There have been accusations that Palworld stole assets for the game, primarily using Pokemon's proprietary models to create their models for the pals. There are also accusations that the game's models are made with the use of Generative AI technology. If proven true, these are damning and would not only tell us that the designers are lazy but also guilty of plagiarism. As of press time, we're judging the game with these accusations in mind but not accounted for in the score as there hasn't been concrete proof as of yet.
Palworld Music and Sound Design
Palworld's music and sound design, interestingly, is where I really catch where the game's inspirations really came from, themes-wise. The sounds that play when you discover new locations sound awfully a lot like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, so much so that I think that had this game come out before Genshin Impact, it would have infuriated two fandoms, not just Pokemon's but also Zelda's. When the game's music also plays is very similar to Zelda's timings, as music only plays in dungeons, in boss fights, as well as when players encounter enemies in the overworld – otherwise, the game leaves the player in a silent, almost solemn, musicless world.
The music is also very similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, that playing the music of one game in the other's world would totally work out. That being said, it also means that the team behind the game's music did a great job of replicating the way Zelda's music affects the player's mood and perception. They're well-made, but could also be a bit too thematically similar to its inspirations. Not to say that there's a case of infringement here, but it would have been nice if Palworld could establish its own personality using its music and tone.
In this regard, music is good enough for Pocket Pair to actually include the game's soundtrack as DLC. But at the same time, it feels disingenuous for them to do this knowing just how similar the game's music has been to its inspirations. I don't harshly judge them for this business decision, but I feel strongly enough about this point to at least mention it here in this Palworld review.
In terms of sound design, I'm judging them based on two categories: the crafting and combat sound design, and the pal's cries. The crafting and combat sound design are your par for the course sound design that you'd usually hear from action-adventure games. Hit a rock? It sounds like metal clanking on a rock. Shot your gun? It sounds like a gun shooting. Cutting wood? It sounds like cutting wood. It's mediocre and very typical, but they don't take anything away from the overall experience.
As for the pal's cries, they are distinct and easily distinguishable between different species of pals, but they also sound strikingly similar to Pokemon's cries. Perhaps, among all things, this is where Palworld is most similar to Pokemon, but it's also the hardest to notice, as evidenced by where the public's attention is right now in the Palworld vs. Pokemon discourse. They do the work, but while the pals themselves I think could stand on their own right and would eventually feel like they are Palworld's and not just Pokemon's copy, the pals' cries will always make me remember Pokemon regardless of how comfortable I get with the pal models.
Palworld Early Access Roadmap
According to Pocket Pair's Steam Page for Palworld, Pocket Pair intends the game to be in Early Access for at least one year. For how long will it stay past the first year is anyone's guess, but given the new resources the team has received since Palworld's launch, we do hope that significant improvements to the game's balance, stability, and new content could be added to this already fun and addicting game. If we will use Pocket Pair's track record as our basis, it would feel like Palworld would stay as it is for the long run, but hopefully, the new influx of money would make this case different from their earlier games.
As for the specific things they are planning to implement in the game, Palworld's Early Access roadmap includes PvP, end-game Raid Bosses, Pal Arena, and Steam-Xbox Crossplay as major content updates. New islands, pals, bosses, and technologies are also advertised in the future, but how many and to what extent we could expect out of this is currently in wraps. Balance updates and bug fixes are also on the menu for Pocket Pair. Disappointingly, however, Pocket Pair doesn't seem to have a distinct timeline for new content rollout.
Verdict: Is Palworld Good? Is Palworld Worth Your Time and Money?
Palworld is fun and addicting. Despite its flaws – both in-game and in its development background, Palworld proves that you don't exactly have to be original to be creative, and you don't have to be all that to make a fun game. What Palworld offers is something new – even if it meant mashing together ideas from different sources and getting inspiration for its gameplay features from a lot of different games. As much as many would be mad to hear it, Palworld as a whole package is more than the sum of its parts. It's amazing how Pocket Pair managed to integrate all of the different gameplay mechanics from different game genres into one cohesive unit in this game.
Still, it's not right for us to turn a blind eye to allegations of copyright infringement, use of generative AI in its design, and asset flipping. Hopefully, with the resources that they have now, Pocket Pair can now put their money where their mouth is and support the game to create a game that is enjoyable for players – but this time, without having to infringe on anyone's properties – assuming that all of the allegations are proven true. Guilty or not, it's very obvious that Pocket Pair liberally copied a lot of ideas from their inspirations, instead of just drawing inspiration and creating their own. For the sake of Palworld and its fans, it would be better if Pocket Pair could really develop something that would be truly Palworld's that cannot be claimed by anyone else.
Our final review score takes into account that the game is fun and addicting and that it has the right recipe and ingredients for a great game, but also takes into account how some of its design practices have been lazy and shortcuts have been taken in its creation. It doesn't take into account yet allegations of copyright infringement and use of generative AI – but if these are proven true once and for all, the overall score would be hit drastically. Either way, this review will be in progress until the game's full launch – whenever that may be – and until then we expect this total score to change over time as the game's development journey progresses in the near future. So, stay tuned.
Score: 7.5/10*
*Early Access Review Score – updated on January 28, 2024. We'll update this review when milestones in the development process are reached, or when the full game gets released.
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