Palworld Under Fire for Alleged Pokémon Plagiarism as Game Surpasses 6 Million Sales; Pocketpair CEO Issues Response

Palworld, the sensational action-adventure survival game developed by Japanese studio Pocketpair, has quickly risen to prominence, dominating Steam charts and amassing an impressive six million copies sold within just four days of its release. However, the game’s rapid success has not been without controversy, as it now finds itself at the center of a plagiarism dispute. Numerous internet users have raised concerns over alleged similarities between the creature designs featured in Palworld and those found in the beloved Pokémon franchise. The controversy escalated when a user on social media platform X undertook a detailed comparison of in-game 3D models from both Palworld and Pokémon, presenting what they claim to be evidence of outright plagiarism.

Palworld introduces Pokémon-style creatures known as Pals, which players can capture and employ for various purposes, including combat, traversal, and base building in the expansive open-world setting. Some gamers and commentators have colloquially referred to Pocketpair’s creation as “Pokémon with Guns.” However, beyond the playful comparisons, accusations of Palworld resorting to plagiarism in its in-game assets have been fervently voiced.

On a Sunday post, X user @byofrog shared side-by-side mesh comparisons of character models from Palworld and Pokémon games. The user initially highlighted similarities between a creature from Palworld and the Cinderace model from Pokémon Sword and Shield, sparking a series of subsequent comparisons and intensifying allegations of imitating Pokémon assets. Since Palworld’s early access release on January 19, the gaming community has been engaged in heated discussions, with some contending that the game draws inspiration from Pokémon while others vehemently accuse Pocketpair of plagiarism.

A former game designer at Blizzard, Eric Covington, quoted one of @byofrog’s comparison posts and claimed that the close similarity seen between character models couldn’t be accidental. “To “accidentally” create a complex model mesh with so near-exact proportions is practically impossible. To repeat that improbability throughout your roster… doesn’t pass the sniff test,” he said in a post on X. Others, meanwhile, were more cautious in their judgment, claiming the game included enough original ideas.

Dinga Bakaba, studio/co-creative director at Arkane Lyon, defended Palworld in a series of posts on X, saying the game effectively mixed and matched gameplay concepts from popular games like Pokémon, Fortnite, Ark: Survival Evolved and Rust. “As a game designer, I’m baffled that some say this is lazy. Even if you copy an idea from another game you can just copy/paste it. Even doing a sequel to your own game with the same programmer in a new engine, it takes crazy amount of time to develop a viable V2.0 of a mechanic,” Bakaba said in one of his posts.

X user @byofrog also went on to qualify his posts comparing Palworld and Pokémon in a later post, saying the 3D models from the two games weren’t identical, despite close resemblances. “I want to emphasize that while some elements are similar these meshes are not literally “exact” copies of each other,” they said.

Meanwhile, game director and Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe responded to the plagiarism accusations on X Monday, claiming the team had received what appeared to be death threats on the socil media platform. “I have received a variety of opinions regarding Palworld, but all productions related to Palworld are supervised by multiple people, including myself, and I am responsible for the production,” Mizobe said in his post (translated from Japanese). “I would appreciate it if you would refrain from slandering the artists involved in Palworld.”

Amid all the noise, Pocketpair confirmed Tuesday that Palworld had sold six million copies in just four days, with its all-time peak player count surpassing 1.7 million. The studio also said that it was prioritising issuing fixes for bugs and other issues reported by Palworld players. At the time of writing, Palworld has hit the third-highest all-time peak concurrent players in Steam history, surpassing Lost Ark and Dota 2. Palworld is also currently the most played title on Steam with almost double the player count of Counter Strike 2.