Rules, they say, are made to be broken. And so, for one issue only, we’re bucking tradition by turning our attention not to the games featured within this section but one obvious absentee. We’re talking about Palworld, the (at time of writing) 19-million-selling phenomenon whose Early Access launch managed to spark some of the most depressing discourse in living memory. Until the arrival of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, at least.
Some declared it a brazen Pokémon ripoff, with claims of plagiarism and generative AI use supported and debunked. Others were overly keen to praise this plucky upstart – which, suspiciously familiar creature designs aside, isn’t much like Pokémon at all, but rather a robust sur vival game which just happens to contain creatures to battle, capture and train.
Our time with the game reveals that it is a competent, utterly craven bandwagon-hopper. Whether or not you believe the more unseemly accusations levelled at Palworld, it is undeniably cynically conceived, and it speaks to a troubling lack of critical standards that the fact it exceeded the lowest of expectations was cause for celebration. Its popularity resulted in a curious desperation to retroactively make a case for its overnight success. If you look hard enough you can see its “endless busywork” cited as a positive, bafflingly.
