In just a few days, Palworld has already become the video game of the moment. Developed and distributed by Pocket Pair, this interesting adventure of collectible monsters has already broken records on Steam. However, popularity always comes with criticism, and now Pokémon fans are accusing this game of plagiarizing most of its designs.
Did Palworld plagiarize from Pokémon?
The concept is very simple: A survival video game with third-person shooter combat similar to ARK: Survival Evolved or Fortnite: Battle Royale, but combining elements of a creature collection game like Pokémon. That’s Palworld, the new video game that is sweeping sales on Steam and managed to reach more than 4 million downloads in less than 3 days. This is due to many reasons, such as the striking contrast of combining hyper-realistic firearms with adorable, cartoonish creatures, or the fact that recent Pokémon installments left much to be desired, so people are looking for a better quality alternative.
Of course, with such a resounding success as this, comparisons to Pokémon were inevitable. The problem is, those with more knowledge about Game Freak’s franchise were quick to notice the similarities between Palworld’s Pals and many of the classic Pokémon. Obviously, taking inspiration from the same animals, plants, myths, etc., it is logical that they share some elements. But this goes further: many fans believe that most of the Pals are suspiciously similar to existing Pokémon, to the point that some even seem to reuse different parts of the official models made by Game Freak. This led to a huge controversy and discussion on social networks.
Palworld was accused of creating copies of popular Pokémon such as Luxray, Meganium or Meowth. Although, due to its sudden popularity, many fans of this new survival game were quick to defend Pocket Pair, explaining that these are purely coincidental because these creatures are based on the same concepts. Although it is also impossible to deny that some of these Pals are too similar to the Pokémon that inspired them, even if it was pure coincidence on the part of Pocket Pair’s designers.
To all this, we must add that Pocket Pair has dabbled in the world of Artificial Intelligence in the past. This would mean nothing, were it not for the fact that old tweets were found of the company’s CEO using AI to create his own Pokémon. It’s worth clarifying that none of this means there is any kind of AI-crafted art or content within Palworld, but it did leave many Pokémon fans wondering. At the end of the day, Pocket Pair shouldn’t care about these accusations, as their game is a best-seller anyway.
Now, we turn the debate over to you: what do you think – did Palworld plagiarize from Pokémon?, or are Pokémon fans overreacting? We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.
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