When I first heard about Palworld, my reaction was confusion. On the surface, it’s an open world Pokemon clone. Cool, give the people what they want. However, the trailer showed creatures using guns, as well as creatures working an assembly line mass producing those guns. Oh, and there’s a farm everyone’s happily working on too, I guess. There is a lot going on here, and I’m not sure it all makes sense.
I have now gotten my hands on the game in Early Access and thankfully it’s a lot more straightforward than it initially seems. That said, its identity is still strange.
Let’s start with the basics. Despite appearances, Palworld isn’t primarily a Pokemon clone. You don’t play as a plucky kid who’s about to head off into the world on an adventure. You instead play as a nameless avatar who washes up on a beach with nothing to their name. That includes clothes, as you strut about in only a few rags to preserve your modesty.
The opening of Palworld is firmly in survival game territory. In these early stages, your priority is to simply not starve or die from hypothermia during the cold of the night. Catching some new animal friends is low on the agenda. You’ll spend multiple nights huddled round a campfire you made with gathered wood until you are able to get yourself to a barely sustainable state. It is, honestly, a rough time that doesn’t leave a great first impression.
Once you do get some clothes and basic tools (plus some mutton from the local adorable lamb population), you get into the real point of the game: enslaving animals for fun and profit. This is where the next bit of confusion comes in, because if you’re expecting cute, wholesome Pokemon times, you might want to look elsewhere.
Sure, you capture creatures (known as Pals) with orb-shaped devices that turn them to your side, but the friendship from the obvious inspiration is rarely on the cards after this point. There is a lot of criticism of Pokemon as a series that suggests it promotes dog fighting, but Palworld insists this can go further. As well as a party of Pals who battle alongside you, you can also gather Pals at your base and put them to work. They will work tirelessly to gather resources, assemble items and build structures for you. You are not building a gang of beloved pets. You are constructing an assembly line.
This gives Palworld a strange vibe. The Pals are adorable creatures, happily frolicking around the fields making cute noises. They will even do little joyful dances every time they complete a craft project for you. But the whole time they’re serving you as diligent unpaid factory workers, which has an unpleasant undertone.
This was most obvious when I encountered a Lipmunk, a cute green squirrel like creature with wind powers. It’s a sweet, innocent being shaped like a friend. However, as soon as I caught one, my Tech Tree immediately revealed the option to unlock Lipmunk’s Submachine Gun. It was massive tonal whiplash.
It’s hard to know how to feel about any of this. I can’t decide if this is genius satire or if the creators genuinely cannot tell how utterly weird it all is. It feels like a parody based off the social criticisms of Pokemon, and yet everything Palworld does feels incredibly sincere.
However, I can’t deny that Palworld is a compelling game to play. The gameplay loop of collecting resources, managing your worker Pals and exploring the vast world for its secret is interesting. The survival elements don’t get in the way too much, thankfully. Your character only gets hungry once a day while clothes instantly negate any concerns about being cold. This leaves you free to focus on seeking out new Pals, building your little homestead and investigating the mysterious towers on the horizon. It’s relaxing, and anyone who’s a fan of Story of Seasons or Factorio is likely to find something to enjoy here.
Exploration is especially fun, as new areas often reveal new Pals. Hiking over a hill and suddenly seeing a chubby penguin or a flying manta ray you haven’t seen before is always a thrill. Sometimes you’ll encounter random challenges, like a group of thugs who you can fight to stop them abusing the wildlife (that’s your job, after all). Sometimes you’ll encounter a roaming boss Pal. There are even hidden dungeons complete with their own challenges and, most importantly, rewards. There’s a lot to discover in this world and it feels rewarding to wander about.
The ominous towers also pose their own major challenges. Here you fight major bosses, which are genuinely tough and require a lot of build up to attempt. They are usually against Syndicate members accompanied by large Pals, and they pack a ton of fire power and health. They feel more like something you’d encounter in Monster Hunter. The tonal whiplash is still present though, as few Monster Hunter fights star a Pokemon Gym Leader riding an electric Totoro in the Astral Plane from Control. At this point, I stopped asking questions.
There is little context for these boss fights though. Story is practically non-existent aside from a few generic NPCs and a small settlement which felt haphazardly placed. I don’t know who the Syndicate are, why their thugs are everywhere or why their leaders are inside magic towers. However, this is an Early Access release so it’s likely the developers are focused on getting the gameplay elements right before trying to explain any of this more directly.
Speaking of Early Access, it’s surprising how stable Palworld is in its current state. I barely encountered any performance issues. I fell through the world once and I’m constantly fighting with the overly sensitive cursor on the Fast Travel map, but that’s all. Everything runs smoother than you may expect at this stage.
Palworld is an odd experience. It’s a tonal mess, with too many systems that shouldn’t work together. And yet, it’s somehow more fun than that ever should be. It’s not exactly the Pokemon open world game you might be expecting, but it is a surprisingly compelling survival game.
Palworld is out now in Early Access for PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
