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Initially known as Pokemon with guns, Palworld has set the gaming world on fire by selling millions of copies in a matter of days and fueling internet discourse with AI art accusations. It’s even led to Arkane Lyon studio director Dinga Bakaba creating a fascinating thread on X (formerly known as Twitter) about the survival game, touching on its mechanics and lightning-rod aspects.
Bakaba, who was game director on Deathloop, notes upfront that Palworld isn’t actually a Pokemon-like and feels more mechanically inspired by Rust and Ark: Survival Evolved. He adds, though, that the title does obviously have similarities to Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Fortnite, and more.
Yeah, I’m surprised by how quickly this is escalating. I’ll try to organize my own hot take-ish thoughts in a thread, separating concept, execution, and dev. First: it’s not a Pokemon-like game. Digimon is. And even if it was, so what? (cries in FPS, BRs, Souls, hero shooters…) https://t.co/6jnWkfiANE
— Dinga Bakaba (@DBakaba) January 21, 2024
Meanwhile, Naughty Dog senior artist Del Walker posted on X that “my gut is telling me Palworld was made nefariously.” Another game developer, Rami Ismail, took a more moderate viewpoint by stating: “I don’t consider it a clone of Pokemon even remotely, but I super don’t love how close some of the Pals are to Pokémon.”
