New Title: Palworld: A Unique Open-World Survival Adventure
In the grassy meadows, a creature resembling a fluffy ball with short limbs, round yellow eyes, and a smile like pasta awaits. Appropriately named Lamball, it is one of the many creatures on the island that can become your friends, provided you employ the right methods: striking them on the head with a large wooden stick (to weaken them, of course), and then capturing them in a colorful sphere called the Pala Sphere, which serves as their new home. Sound familiar? It follows a similar formula (excluding batteries) on which the creators of Pokémon built their empire. No wonder people have been referring to Palworld as “Pokémon with guns” since its announcement in 2021. The game was released in Early Access on Steam and Xbox Game Pass on January 19, and within days, it achieved astounding success for the relatively unknown company Pocket Pair – selling 5 million copies since its launch. It is currently leading on Steam, with over 1.5 million players online at the time of writing this article, and on Twitch, gathering over 340,000 viewers across Palworld streams since its release. The game has become so popular that the servers can barely keep up.
However, despite its nickname as “Pokémon with guns,” Palworld is more of a survival game set in an open world than a traditional creature collection game. In this game, you thrive by consuming your adorable little friends when no other food is readily available. You’ll need to build a base, light a fire to keep warm, and eventually equip your pals with weapons to survive. The concept of the game seemed so outlandish to some that Pocket Pair felt the need to confirm before release that “it is not a scam and will definitely be published.”
If you’re wondering why it has gained such popularity, you’re not alone. Reddit users provided various explanations, pointing out the perfect blend of elements: the appeal of survival games like Rust combined with the cute pet-like characters reminiscent of Pokémon; the desire of traditional Pokémon players for more open-world games; and the unique nature of Palworld itself. “You know when you scroll through a web page and see an absolutely insane game advertisement and it says ‘CLICK HERE TO PLAY NOW!’ and you know it’s a scam?” one user wrote. “Well, this game is like those ads but real. It’s absolutely crazy.”
The game’s success, however, has not come without complications. On social media, users continue to share images of Palworld characters that clearly resemble various Pokémon. In an interview with Automaton, CEO of Pocket Pair, Takuro Mizobe, stated that the company “takes their games very seriously and has absolutely no intention of infringing on other companies’ intellectual property” (Nintendo, which publishes Pokémon video games, has not immediately responded to the inquiry). Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped players from modifying the game, adding Pokémon to it, giving Pikachus pickaxes, and equipping Ash Ketchum with a bow and arrow. It may not be exactly Petilil with a pistol, but it brings out the dark and amusing nature of Palworld.
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The source of the article is from the blog scimag.news