‘Palworld,’ Known As ‘Pokémon With Guns’ Due To Mature Themes, Set For Early Access Release Later This Month

'Palworld' (Image: Pocketpair Inc)

On January 9, the official X account for the upcoming 2024 game, Palworld, released a new trailer for the game showcasing the current state of the game alongside announcing the release date for the early access version of the game for January 19.

The style of the game, where you find and collect various monsters to join your party, is notably similar to the Pokémon franchise of games. This similarity has led to users of social media dubbing the game as “Pokémon with Guns” due to the art style being reminiscent of one of Nintendo’s largest franchises. However, the game does not seem to break copyright law, and it has not yet faced any notable legal troubles during its development.

From the first teasers in 2022, Pocketpair Inc.’s survival monster collector has left many gamers curious regarding the nature of the game due to the showcases of the player character shooting at the cute creatures in the game alongside the creatures working to put together weapons in an assembly, notably upset with their situation.

The company behind this game previously made another open-world crafting game, Craftopia, alongside a party game focusing on AI art generation, AI: Art Imposter. Their previous titles were met with mixed reviews, however, many are seeing promise with Palworld as Microsoft will be placing the open-world game on the game pass at release.

The game also advertises that it will be multiplayer, allowing up to four players in its co-op game mode with dedicated servers allowing up to 32 players. Pocketpair has stated intentions of expanding the maximum player limit for servers and implementing PvP in future updates.

The game will be released on PC through Steam early access and Microsoft’s game pass, alongside also releasing on Xbox Series S, Series X and the Xbox One consoles. At launch, the developers have stated on their official website that there will be over 100 different pals to catch with collectible bosses to find across the world map.