Early Access Review: Palworld is cynical and soulless, yet I can’t stop playing
As I take my first steps out of a cave, surveying a familiar-looking plateau draped in nothing but a loincloth, I suddenly crash into a bulbous, bleating ball of cotton-wool. Half sheep, half sentient ball of fluff, it lets out a startled meep, curling into a ball and rolling head-first towards me.
Panicked, I repeatedly mash the left mouse button, pummelling the dead-eyed sheep/candy floss hybrid with my bare fists. As I deliver a devastating blow the creature lets out a final, pitiful bleat, toppling over and leaving behind a solitary chunk of meat. Welcome to Palworld, the eyebrow-raising indie mega-hit that PETA should definitely be worried about.
Firstly, let’s address the Donophan in the room. Like most misty-eyed nerdy millennials, I utterly adore Pokémon. From its incomparably-iconic cast of lovable creatures to its multi-media spanning fiction, it’s a universe that even in my thirties, makes me grin from ear to ear.
Yet despite the litany of ‘Pokémon with guns!’ comparisons swarming the internet, Palworld actually has far more in common with survival games. Borrowing the best bits of Valheim and Ark: Survival Evolved, Japanese developer Pocketpair builds upon that craft-happy formula and sprinkles some creature-catching comforts atop.
In fact, with Palworld it’s harder to talk about what hasn’t been lifted wholesale from other games. Not content with cribbing from just one Nintendo franchise, climb a crumbling wall in the vast starting plateau and there’s more than a whiff of Link’s latest. Yet while it hints at Hyrule, take more than a few steps across Palword’s plagiarised playground and the map reveals itself to be less Tears of the Kingdom and more breath of the mild.
It’s this smug, unashamed plagiarism that made me want to hate Palworld. From its clearly stolen monster designs, to proven allegations of generative AI use, and copy-and-paste game design, Palworld represents a cynical, calculated approach to art that completely rubs me up the wrong way. Yet,
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