Palworld game craze: “Pokémon with weapons” breaks sales records – why it's a disaster

A new video game called Palworld appeared out of nowhere and took the Internet by storm, and within just a few days saw massive sales and caused backlash.

The video game in question was expected to create a sensation, as its main theme went viral.

Since its debut, Palworld has made quite an impression with its 'Pokémon' holding weapons in their hands, an unusual combination that has caught the eye.

For example, a release date trailer:

However, the massive devastation caused by the game's release was not easy to predict.

Palworld sales reached over 5 million in just three days

It should be noted that sales of Palworld exceeded five million, within just three days of its release (it was released on Friday in Early Access on Steam and Xbox – and on Microsoft's subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, in a preview version).

For comparison: Marvel's Spider-Man Sold 3.3 million Copies of The Last of Us Part 2 in the first three days on the market It reached 4 million In three days. These are games with a much larger budget, made by major companies in the field and published by Sony, while the Spider-Man game needs no introduction.

Evidence shows that people can't stop playing Palworld, with the game climbing the charts and overtaking popular games like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2.

At the time of writing, Palworld ranks second in terms of maximum number of users playing the game simultaneously on PC (Steam), behind only PUBG. At the same time, 1,386,575 people are playing, making Palworld the number one concurrent user on the platform.

Social media has been filled with posts about the game and gameplay videos, people are talking about it and media outlets are writing articles, trying to explain why it's causing such a fuss.

Why has Palworld been such a success?

However, the answer is relatively simple. Palworld has been so successful because it was designed to do just that. It combines elements from beloved games (Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Ark), “ties” them into a technologically convenient package, and builds on a completely bizarre central idea, which immediately grabs attention – and it didn't hurt , either the sale price of as little as 30 euros, as promoted by online influencers (“conquered” and The top of the twitch).

What is world?

It's a survival game where you have to chop wood, break rocks, find food, collect materials and build your base, before you start facing 'Pals', the little monsters that give the game its name and have special abilities. All this, on a big map that we discover little by little and explore.

Then we can fight these creatures, capture them with special balls and run them around our base, farms and mines, while trying to provide them with amenities to keep them happy.

After a certain point, after “leveling up” our character, we also begin creating weapons, such as machine guns, that swing creatures around and fire at our enemies. So it's like Pokemon, but with weapons, while we can also play with friends.

A similar level of destruction can be recalled in very specific video game releases, such as Pokemon Go.

Reactions to “Pokémon with weapons” and threats reported by the game's makers

The “Pokémon with weapons” game has been enough to fill the Internet with memes, but there are also enough people who think the game has valuable elements, beyond its weird core theme and weaponized monsters.

There were comments referring to the technical features part, saying that Palworld uses a graphics engine Unreal Engine 5, is much more advanced than Nintendo's Pokemon games coming to Switch. It also seems that Pokemon fans want to update the series on a technical level, but not only – of course, Pokemon offers a more “tightly” structured experience, based on its text and characters, among other things, while there has also been a step in the direction of renewal with Legends: Arceus .

But there are those who accused Japanese developer PocketPair of copying Pokémon, saying that Palworld's creatures resemble those monsters too much.

For his part, the company's CEO, Takuro Mizubi, confirmed that the game does not violate copyright. Moreover, Pokemon is not the only game to contain such monsters, as other titles have been inspired by the popular Nintendo series, such as the recent Cassette Beasts.

PocketPair's CEO said the company received comments that resembled “death threats.”

There are also people who support Palworld while they are there Special press report It has been reported that the similarities between the monsters and Pokemon will be difficult to dispute, as there appear to be numerous and targeted changes to their appearance, while the gameplay of the two franchises is very different and more similar to ARK: Survival Evolved.

Palworld also stands out for its exaggeration: it gives us the ability to hold a monster in our hands and use it as a flamethrower…

Other accusations facing Palworld are that the creators used artificial intelligence to design the monsters – something that has not yet been proven. After all, the Steam platform Demands from studios Disclose any use of AI-generated assets in games sold on its website.