A game like Among Us? Many didn’t think it was possible for a new game to reach the viral status of Among Us, the 2018 game that became everyone’s obsession during lockdown, but now we have a new contender.
If you missed the news, Palword is now the most played game in the world. According to its makers, it’s also the top selling game in the world. It’s so popular, it has more than a million players playing concurrently on Steam!
So, what’s Palword?
If you love multiplayer games, add this one to your list because it’s simply addictive.
A gaming website called it basically Pokemon-with-guns, a game in which you have Pokemon-like monsters called ‘Pals’ you can equip with guns and send to do your tasks, whether it’s farming, construction or building even more guns.
And yes, just like in Pokemon, you can also treat them as mounts. As you can see from the trailer, this is as Pokemon as another game could be without getting sued for copyright infringement.
If you pair the idea of Pokemon with an open world map and survival mechanics designed for multiplayer, you obviously get something that has the potential to go as viral as Palworld did.
The concepts are so similar, the Palworld vs Pokemon fight is already brewing between not just the companies holding these franchises but also the fanbases. Gamerant for example put together a list of Palworld Pals that look exactly like Pokemon. As you can see, it’s quite a long one – although there aren’t any Pokemons with mainstream appeal like, say, Pikachu. Yeah, Raichu doesn’t count.
PalWorld is developed by PocketPair, a company with little brand recognition among gamers. However, Palworld isn’t their first game – Craftopia is. A few years back, Palworld released Craftopia, another survival sandbox game with crafting mechanics a la Terraria and Pokemon. This redditor has a great writeup on PocketPair’s plagiarism, as some call it, and explains why they think it’s an unfounded accusation.
What is Palworld available on?
If you’d like to play Palworld yourself to see what the fuss is all above, the game was released on January 19th on Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview. Unfortunately no, Palworld isn’t on PS5, and the developers never talked about this possibility, so don’t get your hopes up if that’s your console of choice.
As for its popularity, Palworld sold more than a million copies in just the first 8 hours after launch. It then reached 2 million players in 24 hours, 3 million in the first 40 hours and over 4 millions in its first three days on Steam.
And yes, those buyers were actually players, not just people like *me* who buy games thinking of a future in which they have the time to play them. Palworld reached over 1 million concurrent players, leaving the devs scrambling to upgrade their servers.
Also read: The Future Of Pokémon After Legends Arceus Remains Unclear
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