‘Pokemon With Guns’: Why Gamers Can’t Stop Talking About Pokemon

Nintendo may not have fulfilled gamers' fever dreams of high-powered weapons, but one indie developer did just that on Friday when it launched Early Access. Pallworld On PC and Xbox. And it quickly took the gaming world by storm.

Palworld's creatures look like Pokemon at a glance, but the game is more like Ark: Survival Evolved and Minecraft – or maybe the latest Legend of Zelda games. That mix of cute monsters and solid game mechanics attracts millions of players within days.

But Palword has been controversial beyond the eyebrow-raising elevator pitch. If you've never been following the massive online chat surrounding the game, take a quick look at the countless reasons why gamers can't stop talking about Palworld.

Table of Contents

Toggle

It is “Pokémon with a gun”.

We have to start here. While the idea of ​​”Pokémon with a gun” clearly appeals to many players, the concept is repulsive to others. Some players hate the idea of ​​pocket monsters being openly thrown into violent conflict or seeing Pokemon-esque creatures enter an unfamiliar play style.

Developer Pocketpair employees say they are They received death threats Ever since the game was launched and a huge success. It's a depressing thought, although considering how regional and reactive some players can be, it's actually not that shocking.

It's a huge success.

Palworld launched in early access on Friday — and sold a million copies in eight hours. It has now sold five million copies in three days. According to the developerThe PC gaming platform with over 1.5 million concurrent players on Steam.

Success attracts attention, no doubt, prompting curious players to check it out and haters to talk trash about it. Good or bad, people are definitely talking about Pallworld right now.

People think that AI is generated

If the claims that Palword is a Pokemon copycat or quack are bad enough for players, there are also rumors that the developer used generative AI tools to create the game. It is a. A sick subject For many players, generative AI has been put off for a variety of reasons – sometimes poor results; Impact on human developersOr the trend of gamers complaining about new technologies (Like NFTs) used.

This rumor was sparked in part because Pocketpair had already released the so-called PC game. AI: Artificial intelligenceBuilt around an image generator and also the The CEO of the studio once tweeted About how Give it to her. Image generator can spit out convincing knockoff pokemon.

Slam Dunk, right? Not very fast. As the AI ​​narrative quickly catches up, Forbes “At this point, there is no concrete evidence of generative AI in the game's design or assets,” he pointed out. Similarly, many of the viral tweets about the game's use of generative AI have been tagged with the same community notes.

It is having technical problems.

Early Access games from small indie studios don't often get this big of an audience in just a few days, but Palword has it covered. “Early Access” means it's an incomplete game – a work in progress, basically. But this message can be blurred when millions of people are playing and talking at the same time.

Players noticed bugs and other technical issues in the game, and the servers struggled to keep up with interest in these early days. Besides, it's the Xbox version of the game Some features are missing Released from PC at this point, which unsurprisingly caused more complaints.

There is a Pokemon mod.

Of course there is. YouTuber ToastedShoes has teased a user-created mod for Palworld Pokemon-esque creatures and characters from the most popular franchise to authentic visuals. We're sure Nintendo won't be happy with this development, but what can we say? Sounds like a blast.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.