Palworld launched in Early Access over the weekend. It sold four million copies in just three days, according to its developer and reached a Steam concurrent player peak of over 1.2 million users overnight – giving it the highest concurrent player peak for a paid game, ahead of titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, and Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s pretty clear that hype for the ‘Pokémon with guns’ concept is massive, but while Palworld is taking the internet by storm, it’s not all positive on the internet front. Suggestions of AI usage and plagiarism claims have been rife on social media across the weekend.
Palworld: What’s all the fuss about?
If you’ve been anywhere near the games sphere on X (formerly Twitter) over the weekend, Palworld has split the community into two camps – those who love the critter-catching, base-building open-world gameplay and those who are less than impressed with the developer’s historical use of generative AI and slightly too familiar Pal designs. So what exactly is all the fuss about?
If you’re not up to speed, Palworld is a new open-world game by developer Pocketpair, which launched in Early Access on 19 January. It’s described as a monster-catching, survival and crafting game where you can explore an open world, capture ‘Pals’, put them to work on farms or factories, and fight them if you so choose. Palworld blends a range of mechanics from different genres for a pretty broad gameplay experience and currently has over 34 thousand reviews (with 93% of these being very positive).
While from the outset, Palworld seems like another smash hit capitalising on word of mouth to gain further traction, there are growing concerns about the similarities of some Pal designs to that of actual Pokémon – the game has been regularly touted as Pokémon, but with guns in the leadup to release. Users on X like @Barbie_E4 have shared comparisons between a number of different Pals, such as the Grintale which appears to share a near carbon copy of Galarian Meowth’s face, and Wixen which appears to resemble Braixen – one user pointed out that Wixen also seems very similar to a fanmade Mega Delphox design, suggesting that Pokémon fanart has made its way into Palworld.
Palworld and (alleged) plagiarism
The Palworld Twitter tag (and Steam forums) are home to raging discourse about whether these Pal designs constitute plagiarism, with many more users drawing comparisons to Pokémon designs. Some users have even suggested that Palworld’s designs may have been assisted with AI, given Pocketpair’s history of using generative AI tools. Artist Zaytri posted multiple threads spotlighting the developer’s previous title, AI: Art Imposter, which uses generative AI as part of its core gameplay. They also pointed to multiple old X posts from Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizoba discussing the use of AI tools to generate content, including posts where he generated Pokémon-style designs using AI tools and discussed the possibility of passing images through AI as a means of bypassing copyright.
Online accusations of AI usage in Palworld also point to a recent blog post in which the CEO discusses how Craftopia, Pocketpair’s previous game, mostly used purchased assets, and the developer had no staff with experience in animation prior to working on their newest game. “It’s truly a miracle that Palworld was born, that it was completed, and that it turned out to be such a fun game,” he said (translated from Japanese via Google). He also claimed that the game’s hundred-character concepts came mostly from one graduate student who had been rejected by nearly a hundred companies. “She was a new graduate and had applied to nearly 100 companies, but failed them all…and she is now drawing most of the characters in Palworld,” he said.
At this stage, there’s no indication that Palworld does include AI-generated Pal designs, and Pocketpair has yet to comment on accusations of AI usage or plagiarism in its game. All online discourse is based on conjecture, and it’s possible we may never know exactly how the developer came up with its Pal designs, and executed them seemingly against all odds, given the team’s lack of experience with animation and asset creation. One thing is for sure, though – Palworld is continuing to gain major traction amongst players, with the official X account claiming just over ten hours ago that 86,000 units were being sold per hour.
Have you tried out Palworld? What are your thoughts on the online discourse?
Image: Pocketpair
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