Latest indie darling blow up videogame fad that you'll hear less of in a month or so. I say that somewhat derisively but I think it's pretty normal, Lethal Company was the last one and that was a neat little horror co-op game imo.

I think the reason word of mouth is spreading so much can be attributed to two things:

1. It's somewhat edgy, misanthropic and subversive take on Pokemon/Nintendo's family friendly aesthetics. I can't say much about this as I haven't played the game myself to judge just exactly how much is being played straight and how much is satire (and I don't plan to), but I'd guess people who grew up with Pokemon as a franchise have been looking for that edgy take and are reacting to that, and the resulting controversy is driving the engagement algorithms (I mean just look at hexbear lmao), and

2. it's fulfilling a niche that Nintendo hasn't by being an online multiplayer Pokemon-esque game that's not turn-based; just judging based on some of the clips I've seen but working together with your friends to catch a high level Pokemon-alike actually does look kinda fun. This one's really on Game Freak for allowing Pokemon to go stale by playing it safe and not innovating the game design at all, so Palworld coming in to steal Nintendo's lunch money here's pretty deserved, I think. (Although yeah, I guess Ark did it first but the cartoony character designs are doing a lot of heavy lifting in making the on-screen action legible).

I wanted Pokemon with guns. What I got was yet another unfinished "survival" game with a legally distinct coat of paint.

Honestly, it's very early. It's one of the most feature complete early access games I have played in a long time.

It has similar survival aspects compared to Ark, valheim, and Conan. Building is not punishing with reasonable material requirements. You assign pals to your base, and they perform actions based on their available skills (mining, logging, handiwork, planting, watering, etc) and their passive traits (randomly assigned modifiers). You can keep a party of 6 with you, including one that can be out walking along as a companion. Some can be mounted, some can be used for extra oomf in combat, some will guide you to resources.

There are dungeons around the map that have bosses and loot, as well as some more elusive pals.

It's a bit like Satisfactory in that you setup resource nodes and your outpost will generate those and allow you create things from it. There are a lot of pals to find apparently, as I continue to find new ones while exploring. There are boss battles, sometimes you'll find a camp of syndicate guys (poachers) and free their captive pal from a cage to obtain it.

Idk man, I'm having a blast playing it. It's very forgiving for a survival game, and reasonably easy to manage your base. Resources are plentiful, gameplay loop is pretty solid, and exploration is fun.

Where it will go from here, considering this is the first public build of an early access title, idk. But it has a really good foundation.

It's less edgy pokemon and more just open world pokemon. The vast majority of the edgy stuff are just things that appeared in the pokemon games but you weren't allowed to do yourself.

It’s what gamefreak have refused to do and it’s good.

E: oh yeah, there’s a bunch of absolute freaks going nuts on twitter trying to prove that the developer used ai to make assets from nintendos ip. If you’ve got any experience with 3d modeling or llm/gpt it’s very funny to scroll through. Primo “fifth grader lawyer” time.

Because Hexbear has the weirdest struggle sessions sometimes.

(It's a new monster-catching game that took a animal expolitation spin on Pokemon, and now everyones debating if Pokemon is unethical or not)

Ark survival evolved and factorio but its pokemon crafting survival game but a very rough unreal engine game that looks like an nft game.

I tried it on gamepass, its definitely a video game. No idea why its talked about so much.

It gets compared with Pokemon a lot but honestly the gameplay (to my knowledge) isnt really thaaat much like Pokemon. Its Pokemon + guns + Valheim + Ark Survival.

Its on PC and Xbox. You can play it solo or in groups of 4 or on servers with up to 32 people (I think)

It's pretty fun, if you almost liked Ark survival evolved and like pokemon you'd probably enjoy it.

It's fun :)

Is it wrong to automate my rock stacking if I use water type ~~Pokémon~~ pals?

I'm just happy it's not related to frenworld

it's a joke that got taken too far. it's the free market functioning as it should. it's Pokemon With Guns. it's probably not actually a video game. buy it today!

IDK why we even need a pokemon clone, as there are already 100s of pokemon games and they're all literally the same.

Kinda mid but theres potential there i guess

I like the look of it, but I won't judge as someone who got sick of seeing BG3 everywhere for months. I like D&D enough that I've played some AD&D, but it's possible to have too much of a good thing for sure.

Pokemon is factually one of the largest franchises on earth.

Palworld is possibly a loving parody that addresses at least in part every criticism people have ever had about pokemon so it is fascinating to see it in the wild.

We must protect the copyright holders! How dare they use generative AI to make new pokemon!