Palworld is really breaking the internet, even after months, or when the players get tired of it.
The journey of the game created by Pocket Pair, Palworld, has caused a storm on the internet. Selling over 7 million copies on the Steam in just 5 days is undoubtedly a fantastic record for a developer that was established just in 2015. Palworld’s sales achievement is many times higher than Craftopia, a similar genre game released by Pocket Pair in 2020.
Oh, it doesn’t end there.
Palworld also set a new record on the Steam platform for the highest number of active players. Within its first five days of release, Palworld secured a spot among the top three most played games in the entire history of Steam. As of January 25, 2024, Palworld held the second position with a peak player count of over 1.8 million in a single day. This peak player count surpassed the record held by DOTA 2 with 1.2 million peak players in a day.
Once again, this is fantastic.
Palworld, despite not offering the most unique elements on the table, proves that the three factors propelling its success have been attempted, imitated, and applied by many games, genres, and developers. Yet, the end result leads us to the current success streak of Palworld.
Many people have grown tired of Pokemon, but at the same time, they can’t get enough to try games similar to Pokemon.
This is what we call being bored and addicted at the same time: “Ah, I’m tired of catching Pokemon! Oh, but Palworld looks cute; let’s exploit the Jetdragon!”
The dominance and stagnation of the core Pokemon franchise for over 25 years, have led many to create games imitating the mechanics and monster models in the Pokemon universe. The principle is simple: 1) either ride on Pokemon’s popularity or, 2) create a game with a few Pokemon elements but with a more sincere and fresh approach.
Palworld seems to have chosen the latter.
If you Google the keyword “Pokemon Clones,” you will easily find a long list of games inspired by or (what should i call this, plagiarising?) Pokemon. Familiar names like Nexomon, Temtem, Monster Crown, MinoMonster, and Cradle of Monster are only a few examples. Moreover, in the realm of mobile games, there’s a plethora of turn-based games blatantly adopting Pokemon designs and names for gacha-based games. Due to their abundance, these games often need to change names frequently to avoid Nintendo’s legal pursuit.
It turns out that merely imitating or resembling Pokemon is not enough; only Palworld managed to achieve maximum success with all its similarities and resemblances to Pokemon.
Blending and combining various genres and titles into one.
Palworld stems from a blend and patchwork of several popular genres into one, that have also gone viral in recent years. Pocket Pair seems to be well aware that riding the waves of popular genres can boost popularity with minimal advertising costs.
It’s easy to identify the game titles that inspired the developer. In terms of graphic presentation and character modelling, we can find graphic presentations reminiscent of several Dragon Quest franchises packaged with the Unreal Engine. The style of chopping trees, building houses, hunting and crafting systems is also heavily influenced by games like Valheim, Sons of the Forest, and various survival genre games.
As an added spice, Palworld also incorporates a touch of Michael Bay. Why just survive, build a base, and capture monsters, if you’re not given explosive scenes, gunfights, machine guns, flamethrowers, or even missiles?
People love destruction.
A game that initially seemed family-friendly due to capturing cute monsters suddenly turns into something akin to Fortnite and Dauntless within hours. Not only can our characters use firearms, but Pocket Pair also understands that monsters given the ability to use missiles while mounted will look very cool and intimidating. Voila! Jetdragon appears, dousing opponents with missile barrages.
But, is Palworld the only game inspired by many popular titles and combining these aspects into its gameplay? Oh, certainly not. Nothing new under the sun.
Already similar to Pokemon and mixing aspects from many famous titles, what the last recipe that makes Palworld different from similar games and predecessors?
Palworld empowers monsters more than what Pokemon does.
The Pokemon Company seemingly doesn’t want to highlight the exploitation or slavery of Pokemon in its main game series, which is in contrast to its anime, where Pokemon are shown to coexist with humans and work for them. In the anime series, it’s easy to find Chansey working in Pokemon Centres, Geodude working in mining sites, or Machoke lifting heavy project equipment.
However, in Pokemon games, we can hardly use Pokemon for anything other than fighting and traversal. It’s only in the Pokemon Arceus series that the principle of utilising Pokemon for farm work — tilling the soil and watering plants — is introduced to the public. Even then, the options are very limited, involving only a few Pokemon and being scripted from the beginning.
Palworld, on the other hand, keenly sees this as an opportunity.
Monsters, or what we call pals, are the heart of the game. Pals have a direct impact and are involved more deeply in the player’s activities. They are not just tools for battle, but also tools for building structures and gathering resources for survival.
Let’s just call it the exploitation system.
Pals are classified not only based on their abilities and active fighting skills but also based on worker classes. Some are specifically able to work in various job areas, such as crafting, gardening, and mining. There are also monsters that only have one job specification but excel or have high efficiency.
The peak player count and the number of players online on the Steam platform are proof that Palworld has succeeded in engaging its players. Players activities in building this survival culture are divided into two categories: 1) building combinations of worker monsters to produce the largest amount of resources; and 2) bringing a group of the strongest fighting monsters to conquer the Palpagos Island.
Once again, is Palworld the only survival game, or the only game with monster-catching mechanics that applies the culture of exploitation to specific objects in its gameplay? Certainly not. Games like Ark and Conan the Exiles were implemented this long ago.
Palworld is the only game that follows those recipes and succeeds massively.
Although no one can accurately predict when the popularity of Palworld will end, the records broken by Palworld on the Steam platform are evidence that Palworld, despite being somewhat immature and full of flaws, seems so intriguing to dive into for dozens of hours.