Palworld dev's upcoming Metroidvania switches developer credit as it drops a new demo

eurogamer.net:

Palworld developer Pocketpair has dropped a new Steam demo for its upcoming Metroidvania, Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse.

The upcoming game – which, like Pocketpair's predecessor, is fielding accusations of alleged plagiarism given its striking similarity to another fan-favourite Metroidvania game – doesn't yet have a release date, but is expected to release in the next three months, offering up to four-player multiplayer.

Unlike Palworld, however, Pocketpair isn't listed as this game's developer, only its publisher. Pocketpair was listed as the developer up until three days ago, but after a quick check with SteamDB, it seems this was changed on 25 January 2024.

Now, Frontside 180 – a new studio which seems to have little to no electronic footprint – is listed as the developer.

Wayback Machine also confirms Never Grave listed Pocketpair as its developer until recently, too.

Never Grave is described as «a Metroidvania x Roguelite where you journey with the aid of a cursed hat».

«Use a variety of magic or possess your enemies to reach the lowest levels! Bring back loot, build new facilities in your village, make a living and strengthen yourself for the next battle!

»Unlike most platformers, it has an enemy possession system, base building and multiplayer."

Earlier this week, The Pokémon Company issued a statement confirming it was now «investigating» whether Pocketpair's astonishingly successful Palworld has infringed its intellectual property rights.

Not that that has dampened enthusiasm for Palworld among players, of course. Yesterday saw Palworld's Steam concurrent numbers pass two million for the first time, making Palworld the second game ever on Steam to do so after PUBG. It also once again broke its own concurrent user record overnight, hitting a new high of 2,101,867 concurrent players.