Palworld is a Broken, Unhinged Masterpiece

Is this game terrible, or is it amazing? The answer is yes.

[WhyDo]

I'll update this pinned comment with any new info, corrections, etc.!

Correction(s):
- Ark does let you customize the EXP modifier and some game rules! But I do love the sheer range of settings Palworld offers (day/night duration, whether you drop items on death, etc.), and I think Palworld's design overall does respect your time as far as this type of survival game goes.

[AmandaFessler]

Reminds me of another saying... "Stealing from one source is plagiarism. Stealing from multiple sources is research."

[SSJK]

I've been addicted to Palworld for like 5 days and its crazy seeing all of these pieces of inspiration. They took great parts of several games and mixed it together. That's what great artist do, but it's insane seeing a GAME with so many moving parts, pull it off. Great vid by the way

[theturtleking]

Ngl I think the difficulty options exist because the developers were using those exact same sliders to tweak the game balance and at some point they decided to just give it some ui and throw it on the menu to let players use it. They’re smart for that

[LostSnowdrift]

2:28 "the animation of the pals [carry] more than everything else"

it's true! one of the core concepts of the game, acc to the lead dev/director, was "automation with emotion" -- not just having a base with generic worker grunts, but having workers that emote and express themselves thru animations. thats part of why development took so long: ~20 animations per pal, x 130 pals, is a lot of animation to make! especially for a team that self-professed to "not knowing what a rig was" at first!

[maxfromflorida]

"This is no mere level one plagiarism, this is a carefully constructed kaleidoscope of almost plagiarism"

[greed]

Every time my Katress helps me finish crafting slave spheres and gets the happy sparkles, I get the warm fuzzies.

[DoMorrMusic]

To quote the great philosopher Coney, “selling humans is the meta.”

[phoenix]

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"

Honestly, the fact that Palworld puts several ideas together and successfully makes it mesh together shows potential. As for the human characters, I imagine they'll be expanded once the critical gameplay issues are solved for the most part.

[kaseywahl]

Palworld executed on what we've all known for years.

Modern games are predatory by design, selling you half-complete thoughts and charging you again and again for the next piece of the puzzle. Or they'll sell you loot boxes until you're blue in the face just so you can try to "keep pace" with the whales in pay-to-win fashion. Or they'll simply release games in a broken state because the devs are overworked and underpaid with not enough time to execute properly.

Palworld isn't trying to push the needle. It's not trying to put money before the gameplay experience. It's giving us the kind of experience like early Blizzard games gave us: a love letter from devs who love games and aspire to make something enjoyable at an accessible price.


I freaking LOVE that these devs did so much with so little in terms of expeprience and budget.

This game gives me hope for small studios and people like me who have all but completely stopped gaming so I can make enjoyable games instead.

I want my kid to enjoy gaming the way I did as a kid: pure joy with reckless abandon, never worrying when I have to fork out another $10, $20, $50 just to continue playing, and never having to feel guarded about the studio trying to rip me off around every corner.

[chrisbarnes]

Nintendo response was more "stop tagging us non stop. We know about palworld and if we could do something, we would uave by now"

[JoseELeon]

12:52 wait.... thats the actual game censoring it??? i thought the youtubers added that

[thenetherkinggaming]

I don’t get why so many people considering remixed ideas bad, the hole point of copyright at least in the US is to let the company make money for originally 14-28 years max then other people get to use that idea.
The only reason it’s nearly 100 years for some works is because companies like lobbying more then sharing.

[veen]

4:40 clearly he didnt caught a depresso yet.

[rapidest]

3:21 looks like someone never found the isekai pizza guy and his magical pizzas

[stupidwb]

please let palworld thrive so the competition makes Pokemon company actually try

[lexysteinberger]

See, funniest thing about it being a kaleidoscope of plagiarism: because it's made of more than one franchise, that makes it a derivative work, aka completely legal

[panampace]

You’re spot on about the animation. The Pals look like soulless knockoffs, but the animations make them super loveable. Meanwhile the official Pokémon games are lifeless in their animations like the NPCs in Palworld.

[silsternensand]

8:42 "... desire for my work to be enjoyed..." that is the intension of good writers and good filmmakers. What's so surprising that game developers also have this goal? Maybe because in the gaming industry the fun of the players has been downgraded to a minor matter and it's only about income?

[flaminpirates]

1:15 oh come on, theres no way your comparing Chikipi to a pokemon, ITS LITERALLY A CHICKEN.