What do you consider while you consider Palworld? Unfortunately for the parents who made it, the reply is fairly prone to instantly be, “Pokemon with weapons.”
That’s as a result of when the sport first exploded into reputation, that’s the shorthand everybody on the web used for it, seemingly contributing to its rise due to the odd mixture of two not like concepts. Heck, we at IGN are responsible of utilizing the phrase too, similar to everyone else. It was handy and simple for many who had by no means heard of the sport to instantly perceive.
But in keeping with Pocketpair communications director and publishing supervisor John ‘Bucky’ Buckley, “Pokemon with weapons” was by no means meant to be the takeaway. In truth, he says that Pocketpair largely doesn’t love the moniker. He mentioned this in a chat on the Game Developers Conference final month, when he mentioned the preliminary rise to fame of Palworld in 2021.
“We revealed the sport to the world in June of 2021, so fairly a number of years in the past. We posted a trailer at what’s referred to as Indie Live Expo, which is an indie gaming occasion in Japan. We confirmed this off to the Japanese viewers initially, we had a extremely, actually good reception. But in a short time, Western media received eyes on this little recreation, and we had been in a short time branded, as early as 2021, as a ‘sure franchise’ plus weapons. This can be one thing that has caught with us to this very day, regardless of our greatest efforts to shake that off.”
After his speak, I spoke with Buckley in an interview and requested him to elaborate on this. Buckley responded that Pokemon was by no means actually a part of the pitch to start with. Sure, the event crew is basically composed of followers of the sport, they usually clocked the monster-collecting similarities. But the purpose was all the time to be extra like ARK: Survival Evolved as a substitute.
“Loads of us are enormous ARK folks, and our earlier recreation, Craftopia, form of has some stuff in it that we actually cherished from ARK and a few concepts from ARK,” he mentioned. “So we wished to simply take that and make it larger. And one of many issues about ARK, is that all the pieces’s in regards to the dinosaurs. Some are cute, some are cool. But we wished to offer them extra persona, extra talents, extra uniqueness. So that was the pitch. The pitch was, let’s make one thing like ARK, however loads heavier on the automation and every creature’s like its personal very particular factor. And then we present that first trailer, after which this title form of got here out. And no, we weren’t tremendous pleased about it, however it’s what it’s.”
I requested Buckley if he thinks the “Pokemon with weapons” label helped Palworld change into as profitable because it was, and he acknowledges it did.
“Yeah, I imply, that was huge,” he mentioned. “That was positively an enormous factor. Dave [Oshry] from New Blood [Interactive, publisher of Dusk, Fallen Aces, and others] messaged us as a result of he trademarked the web site, ‘Pokemonwithguns.com’ and stuff. All this sort of stuff occurred, and I’m certain that fueled that fireplace, which is honest sufficient.
“But nonetheless as we speak, 2025, if folks wish to say [“Pokemon with guns”], that is nice. But the factor that upsets us, I suppose, a bit bit, is the individuals who firmly consider that is what the sport really is. But it isn’t even remotely like that to play the sport. So if you wish to say that after taking part in, that is nice, however we would fairly everybody give it a little bit of an opportunity first.”
But Buckley additionally doesn’t really feel that Pokemon is even a significant supply of market competitors with Palworld. “I don’t assume the audiences cross over that a lot,” he mentioned, once more pointing to ARK as a neater parallel. Even then, although, he doesn’t really feel Palworld is combating with anybody else specifically for an viewers of gamers. Not even Helldivers 2, which he mentioned a “very important” portion of Palworld gamers additionally purchased on launch.
“I’ve gotten in trouble for ranting about the ‘console wars’ before, however I feel the competitors in video games is form of manufactured for the sake of it,” he mentioned. “Almost like a meta-marketing form of technique. I do not actually assume there may be competitors in video games. I imply, there’s so many video games proper now. How are you able to be in competitors with one or two? It would not actually make sense anymore. We’re simply all the time in competitors with the timing [of releases] greater than something, I feel.”
So if “Pokemon with weapons” is out, what tagline would Buckley have had go viral, if he may have had his method?
“I in all probability would’ve referred to as it, ‘Palworld: It’s Kind of Like ARK if ARK Met Factorio and Happy Tree Friends’ or one thing like that. That’s how I’d’ve mentioned it.”
I instructed him it doesn’t fairly roll off the tongue the identical, to which he agrees.
Buckley and I additionally spoke in regards to the chance of Palworld coming to the Nintendo Switch 2, whether or not Pocketpair would ever be acquired, and far more in our interview. You can learn the total dialogue proper right here.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can discover her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a narrative tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
