A shooter-survival game called Palworld has gone viral amid accusations that it is “Pokemon with guns”

On Friday, Pocket Pair, a small Japanese gaming studio, released an early access version of Palworld, a shooter-survival game in which users are challenged to capture monsters

Among other things, users can also shoot “Pals” – the game’s cartoon-like monsters – with guns

The game was an instant hit: Pocket Pair sold 5M copies in three days, and it peaked as the #1-most-played game on popular gaming platform Steam with 1.8M concurrent users

Palworld’s success was a surprise given its studio’s relative obscurity and the fact that it is only available on PC and two versions of the Xbox

Yet the game also faces allegations that it plagiarized Pokemon

“Pals” shares with Pokémon both visual similarities and the concept of users catching and training monsters

In light of those similarities, online commentators began referring to Palworld as “Pokemon with guns”

In response, Nintendo – Pokemon’s main distributor – and Pokemon Co. said they are aware of the game but did not comment further

Pocket Pair’s CEO defended the game’s graphic design and said it “cleared legal reviews”

The CEO also claimed that its artists were receiving “slanderous comments” and other messages that “appear to be death threats”

“All productions related to Palworld are supervised by multiple people, including myself, and I am responsible for the production,” he wrote on X

Nevertheless, Palworld remains Steam’s most-purchased and most-played game

You can read more stories like this in our app

Roca makes staying informed actually fun. Read more stories, solidify your learning with quizzes, play minigames, earn XP, level up, and climb leaderboards