There has been a lot of talk aboutPalworldrecently, and little of it has been good. Palworld has cleared nine million in sales, so it must be doing something right, but you wouldn’t know it from the conversations. It’s not just the debates around the ‘stolen’ designs, orthe potential threat of a lawsuit from Nintendo(andthe footballification of this issue). Even its fans enjoy it under caveats. ‘I like it, but even I know [insert criticism]’ has been the tone adopted by many. Let’s push that aside and focus on what’s good about Palworld.
One of the main criticisms inserted is that Palworld is fairly shallow. While its longevity is yet to be measured, plenty of other games have gone for shallow and simple in the past and failed - while yet more have succeeded but to far less a degree than Palworld. It must be doing something else right, and it’s not just ripping offPokemon. Plenty of other games have… you know what, you just read this sentence.
There is a simplicity in Palworld’s shallowness that makes for a rewarding and simple feedback loop. All survival games do that to an extent, asking you to punch trees and kick rocks until you’ve learned the ropes, but Palworld offers a lot of recipes early on and allows for tangible improvements with each rapid level up, while early game Pals have distinctive designs and can be immediately put to work.
For all it’s Pokemon with guns,you’ll be playing for a long time before you even get a firearm. If that was the only draw then the game wouldn’t have taken off the way it has. The central gimmick needs to be earned, and masses to the number of nine million are prepared to earn it. For all Palworld is talked about almost exclusively in relation to Pokemon, itis less reliant on this comparison than we think.
Part of this is an engagement with what gamers want these days. Studios have become obsessed with photorealism, spending millions to be cutting edge only for time to quickly blunt those edges. It’s impressive, and there’s clearly a market for games that represent our technical apex. But overall aesthetics and visual themes have been stripped away by this pursuit, and games lose personality.
In a strange way, it reminds me of the new Mean Girls movie. In the film’s musical numbers, the set becomes a burst of colour and creativity, feeling fresh and unique, every inch of the frame telling a story and giving you a good time. The energetic chaos of Revenge Party is a particular high point. But when the movie is in dialogue mode, it has no visual language whatsoever, just limply copying the original movie in the most bland and generic way possible.
Triple-A games are afraid of musical numbers (metaphorically, although I suppose also literally). They push the boundaries, but they don’t swing for the fences. Clearly they prefer cricket to baseball in this sense. Many triple-A games manage to look both impressive and generic at the same time, astounding on a technical level but to grey and dreary results. Palworld is something of a salve on this trend.
A sports metaphor after a Mean Girls analogy is my way of keeping the entire gender spectrum onside.
Sure it’s colourful, but it’s more than that. It mixesthe already popular feel of Pokemon and Fortnite together, which has proven to be a winning combination, yet it’s the things that don’t work that most work in its favour. Palworld is an indie early access game, and relatively cheaply made at that, so it has a lot of wonkiness and jank. In these games that strive for perfection, jank breaks your immersion and ruins the experience. In something like Palworld, they only add to it.
Conventional wisdom has long stated that hardcore gamers who know every shipped game is a miracle will be more accepting of bugs as they understand the trials and tribulations. Casual players, however, will have a far lower tolerance. But recently it has seemed like the opposite is true, as the masses embrace a string of low tech, often erratic titles. Palworld right now, but just before Christmas it wasLethal Company, whileFall GuysandAmong Ushave both enjoyed time in the sun too.
Though not ‘trends’ in the way these games are, the fact many emerging gamers today were first drawn to the medium byMinecraftorRobloxis probably a factor too. Rather than being drawn instantly to the maximum of gaming’s visual potential and having to settle for something that can’t live up to it most of the time, Minecraft and Roblox emphasise creativity and enjoyment over impressive tech or photorealism.
Palworld is not responsible for much of this trend, but is the latest (and arguably most notable) entry. With games getting more and more expensive, some further proof that looks aren’t everything is a welcome reminder to an industry in dire need of a cure for its obsession with chasing photorealism.
Palworld
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Palworld has been described as Pokemon with guns and well, it’s hard to argue with that. The game is very similar in nature to the Pokemon formula, tasking you with catching and working with monsters called Pals. There are key differences, though. Palworld is rooted in multiplayer, oh, and, unlike Pokemon, its Pals have guns.
