For any fan of the Pokemon series that has ever thought that Pokemon should be able to wield guns, the perfect game is currently in production. Palworld, a bizarre upcoming survival game that many people are referring to as "Pokemon with guns" is set to release sometime in 2023. While Palworld features adorable Pokemon-esque creatures, the game seems to feature a number of darker elements.
While Palworld was originally meant to release in 2022, it has been pushed back to 2023. The team behind Palworld has confirmed that the game will be appearing at Summer Game Fest on June 8, so a 2023 release date seems extremely likely. With a number of trailers and screenshots available to gamers, excitement has been steadily building for Palworld, but beyond the brightly-colored, cute world, Palworld seems to have a darker underbelly just waiting to be discovered.
Everything Revealed About Palworld So Far
Palworld is in development by the studio Pocketpair, best known for the survival-action game Craftopia. Palworld is also set to lean heavily on survival gameplay elements and is being touted as an open-world survival crafting game with multiplayer. But other players are not the only companions that players will be able to work alongside in Palworld—the most notable feature in the trailers is the cute Pals, animal-like creatures that players can befriend and use in their survival journey.
The Pals are extremely similar to Pokemon, with some Pal designs appearing to be little more than slightly-altered clones of fan-favorite Pokemon like Wooloo, Leafeon, Piplup, and more. Another Pokemon similarity is the ability for Pals to engage in battle with one another, though Palworld's battles seem to be significantly more gruesome.
Trailers for Palworld show Pals and player characters wielding guns and fighting to the death in brutal combat encounters. Other trailers show small, adorable Pals being eaten alive and crushed to death by larger Pals, and worse yet, players can even eat their own Pals.
Players will also be able to put their Pals to work doing tasks like aiding with farm work, but trailers also show Pals working in firearms factories in terrible conditions with tears in their eyes as they work a factory line. So while Palworld may lift a number of elements straight from Pokemon games, the game is putting its own gruesome twist on many aspects of gameplay.
Additionally, Palworld's open-world gameplay will allow players to engage first-hand in combat with Pals and other players. Pokemon Legends Arceus experimented with this, allowing wild Pokemon to hurt player characters directly, but Palworld seems to take things a step further. Palworld is set to include elements of third-person shooters, with some sources comparing it to a third-person Rust.
Just because Palworld is featuring the bright art style and adorable creatures that Pokemon fans have come to know and love, gamers that love the turn-based format of Pokemon games may be in for a bit of a shock with the action-shooter gameplay that Palworld will focus heavily on. Players with a sentimental streak that love to name and care for their Pokemon teammates may also struggle with Palworld, since Pals are seemingly built to be exploited in this game.
The Pokemon series doesn't tend to get much darker than Team Rocket, but Palworld is taking the Pokemon concept and turning it on its head. It's unclear how much of Palworld is meant to be satirical, but it is definitely built on concepts made popular by Pokemon and similar franchises like Digimon. The next trailer is set to debut in June at Summer Game Fest, and it remains to be seen if more gameplay elements will be revealed or if a larger storyline will come to light.
Palworld launches in 2023 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.