When it comes to gaming, 2024 shows much promise with upcoming releases such as Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door. January alone came out swinging with The Last of Us: Part 2 Remastered, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and Tekken 8. However, none of these releases compare to the juggernaut that is Palworld. Developed by Pocket Pair, Palworld is an early access survival game where players can capture creatures called “pals” to help them along the way. The game launched on Xbox and PC on January  19, 2024 and proceeded to break the Internet. Within its first week, Palworld reached a peak of over 2.1 million players on Steam, sold over 8 million copies, and achieved over $5 million in sales. With its quick success, Palworld has also been the center of controversy due to some pal designs being criticized as for looking similar to designs from properties like Pokémon.  Because of the strange place Palworld is in right now, I decided to give it a shot and see what the hype was about. I created my character, Hatsune Mikey, and started my Palworld journey.

            The game started with Mikey waking up on the shores of the Palapagos Islands. He found a strange tablet that tells him, “The towers are the key.” After that, he was teleported to the starting area, and that was it. The game stopped holding his hand and Mikey was able to explore the world to his heart’s content. He quickly started collecting resources and met pals like Lamball and Deadream. Mikey even tried to capture a Mammorest that was 32 levels higher than him, only to be curb stomped by it. Despite this setback, Mikey got back up and continued to explore. He captured some low-level pals and set up a base at an abandoned fort by the coast. Along the way, Mikey had some run-ins with the Rayne Syndicate, who are the main antagonists of the game. While most were easily dealt with, Mikey had difficulty dealing with Zoe and her pal Grizzbolt in one of the strange towers seen in the world. Having overcome so many obstacles now, Mikey continues to improve his base, add more pals to the party, and spread joy across the Palapagos Islands.

With 11 hours put into the game, I’ve concluded that Palworld is more akin to “Ark with Pokémon” than it is “Pokémon with guns”. There is a heavy emphasis on open-world exploration and resource gathering, along with item crafting and base management. There are multiple environments, structures, and dungeons to explore. You’ll have to fight while exploring, with combat focusing on third person shooting mechanics and melee weapons. You can have up to 4 weapons/tools in your inventory that can be quickly cycled through in the heat of combat. There’s also survival mechanics like stamina, hunger, and temperature to consider. Said mechanics can limit how much you can do and explore but are quickly alleviated as you build up your base and collect your resources. Along with these main mechanics, there are some interesting “quirks” that Palworld offers. The biggest one is having the ability to capture human NPCs in the game at a 3% chance. It is possible because Mikey did it in self-defense. While there are no major consequences, the game will state that doing so is considered inhumane.

The other side of Palworld’s gameplay stems from the pals. These creatures can be seen wandering around the world in spades, with plenty of opportunities for players to catch and/or fight them. The game takes inspiration from Pokémon Legends Arceus in regard to capturing and sending out pals. There’s freedom of movement during combat and a higher success rate when throwing a pal sphere (the Pokéballs of Palworld) at their back. Similarly to Alpha Pokémon, there’s Boss Pals that are more powerful and larger than usual. You can also send your pals to collect nearby resources or fight with you. Outside of exploration and combat, pals can be assigned at bases to run stations, cook food, manage resources, and craft items. Each pal has specific skills, abilities, and traits that emphasize specific roles. These can range from a chance increasing item drop rates, to being able to ride the pal, to even using your pal as a literal flamethrower. It’s always fun to see Hatsune Mikey’s Liffmunk hop onto his head and mow down enemies with its submachine gun.

There’s much to love and hate about Palworld. The game offers a lot of freedom immediately after the introductory cutscene. There’s a tutorial players can follow, but it acts as an optional checklist that can easily be ignored. If you happen to die, the game gives you the option to respawn either at your base or one of many different islands in the world. As a result, players could start in different environments and have unique experiences from each other. Furthermore, gameplay feels fairly fluid and fun, leading to many diverse playstyles. Also, despite the general controversy around them, I’ve come to enjoy many of the unique pal designs. Some of my personal favorites so far are Caprity, Wumpo Batan, Eikthyrdeer, Mammorest, Fuack, Penking, and Relaxaurus. The biggest gripe, though, I have with Palworld is passive regeneration being the main way of healing. You can craft medical supplies, but they’re only for curing debuffs, and pals like Teafant can heal you with their skill that needs to recharge before using again. As a result, dying can be very frequent. Other than healing, my gripes with the game stem from bugs, with clipping through the map randomly and faulty AI being what I’ve experienced the most. Even so, it’s pretty funny seeing Mike’s Grintail body slam a Syndicate Thug so hard they clip through the map at terminal velocity.

            Overall, I enjoyed my time with Palworld, and it has a bright future ahead. With the game still being in early access, there’s time and opportunities for Pocket Pair to look at player feedback and improve on the game. This especially stems from Palworld being a learning experience for the developers. According to Pocket Pair’s CEO, Takuro Mizobe, the game switched from Unity to Unreal Engine 4 during development, and the team wasn’t experienced with 3D animation and model rigging. As Pocket Pair gains a better grasp on Unreal, they may edit pal designs to be more unique, along with the usual bug fixes. Shifting from the developer side of things, the Palworld community has been interesting to see developed. Many have hopped onto the modding scene, with ones like the Pokémon mod showing a lot of potential. Even with Nintendo taking down the Pokémon mod, it's proof of how far players can already go with their ideas. Speaking of Nintendo, I believe they won’t be taking major actions for now. As long as Palworld’s designs aren’t 1-to-1 recreations of Pokémon, Nintendo will most likely stay neutral on the subject. Personally, I’m excited to see what Palworld will become, and what adventures Hatsune Mikey will go on next. Also, if anyone’s curious, Hatsune Mikey’s favorite pal is Daedream.

Writer: Jacob

Artist: Evan Rubenstein

Tags: Pokémon, Videogames, Gaming, Palworld