Palworld, a video game from Japanese company Pocketpair, has become an overnight success. Dubbed “Pokémon with guns”, the game is described as a “multiplayer monster-collecting game with open-world survival elements”.
Launched on January 19 in early access form on Steam as well as on Xbox and Windows PC, the game overtook CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077 to set Steam’s fifth highest peak concurrent player count with 1,291,967 online at the same time on Valve’s platform.
Palworld’s announcement trailer arrived in 2021. There are enough colourful, cute monsters but once gamers caught a glimpse of AK-47s, everything changed. A memorable moment from the first trailer is when a group of pals (the monsters are called pals) are seen mournfully manufacturing assault rifles on an assembly line.
Players are known as ‘pal-tamers’ and they need to travel around a large map fighting human foes and creatures known as ‘pals’, who can be captured and recruited. These monsters can be made to fight alongside the player or put to work to craft supplies and items for use in the field.
Knocking a penguin out with an axe or using the gun to capture a cute “pal” can be disorienting for some but that’s not stopping people from downloading the game.
Controversy is not far behind the success the game is enjoying. Some Pokémon fans have been taking to social media to point out striking similarities between Palworld’s Pals and the Pokémon themselves.
The Last of Us Part Two sold four million copies in three days but Palworld is clearly a winner as it has sold faster than the fastest-selling PlayStation exclusive of all time.
Picture: Pocketpair
