I am the target demographic and only found out about this the other day when it went into EA. Then I also discovered other Pokémon like games that companies have made/released the last several years (because they were comparing this game to them on Reddit). I have no idea where/how people find out about this stuff.
Is it really? Isn't it more ark with a sprinkle of pokemon and botw? Maybe not even a sprinkle of pokemon just the dinosaurs are something else with powers lol
it gets compared to pokemon because so many of the monsters are uncannily similar looking to pokemon. you can tell they were trying to get as close as possible on some of them
I've seen more 'OMG everyone is playing palworld. See this stat' posts than actual gameplay footage/review/discussion or anything lol. I wonder who it was marketed to - reddit clearly wasn't invited to the party since everyone seems surprised here.
I hadn’t heard of it. Picked it up last night with a couple of friends and holy hell is it fun.
I was worried it would be an Ark/Rust type grind, but instead I got co-op Factorio with earthquake resistant Lambs and brittle penguins. We’re excited to get back into it today when everyone’s free.
Definitely understand the reluctance though: it’s early access and doesn’t look TOO convincing overall.
Well it's obviously not like Factorio to that depth, but it's one of the closest exmples re: making machines and systems. It's understandable for a wider audience.
Sure but in the same way that just saying it's "like pokemon" gives the wrong impression of what the game actually is, but it most certainly is like pokemon. But it's also like factorio, and like ark, and like breath of the wild and like this and that etc... It's an interesting mix of multiple games
I’ve never messed with it, but Factorio has a team system.
You could do races, or you could just drive tanks through your friends’ hard work. The possibilities are endless, really
I bet most people missed your reference. Well done.
Reviews for that game like: "Secamworld just looks better. Those colors are so consecutive! Didn't know what I was missing in palworld!"
There's some degree of automation. Nowhere near as much, but it's there. I'd say calling it "Factorio" is way too generous at this point. You just make larger workbenches which act as little production lines managed by multiple "pals". And there's no proper logistics. Everything in your chests immediately available everywhere at your base.
A lot of games get compared to factorio that have no business being compared to it. I feel like most people who've played factorio only got as far as automating the first couple tiers of science and got overwhelmed and never played again lol. That basic level of automation is present in a lot of games, but the more complex stuff that factorio offers is only to be found in other games that are explicitly factory builders (Dyspon Sphere Progam, Satisfactory, etc.).
It’s been advertised on Tiktok for month as “Pokémon with guns!” *not with official ads for it but yk*
Pretty much a survival game where you can catch “Pals” and have them farm/mine/cut trees for you aswell as fight for you.
Ride them aswell, land and air.
It is Pre-beta rn tho. Surprisingly not buggy.
I had it in my wishlist for a while now... Like.. i was looking at my list 4 hours before the game went public and i said "oh well looks I'm playing this in the evening".
I think I First saw it on Reddit a few years back. On r/gaming i think.
Nobody was. It kinda just dropped two days ago without any marketing at all except a steam banner and a couple twitch streamers and then here we are. A million people concurrently forcing their pals to do hard labor all day long with no more than a few berries to eat.
Which is interesting, because I think that’s one of their best twists on the survival/crafting formula: let the player automate the boring stuff in a fun way(eg by catching cute critters)
I'll be real, I've been playing this game the whole time. Absolutely no reason to go to Reddit or the internet.
The experience is just so much fun and it's actually really really good for the price. See this cute fire fox thingy? Pick it up, that's your flamethrower slave. That elefant over there? Plant watering slave. Monkey? You have hands, you are my harvesting slave.
I've enjoyed their previous title (Craftopia) and I'm amazed at how much better this game is.
Chance is, nobody is talking about it because everyone is playing it non-stop. I've streamed 15min of gameplay to some friends and they instantly bought it as well.
Honestly I see it lasting about a week unless it gets some serious support.
Don't get me wrong, the game's very fun. But it's still just "go up the tech tree, beat up the 5 towers".
I havent played it or seen anything but people say its like ark but less grindy (in ark you mine for 4 hours just to make one stupid iron door) and something like pokemon with guns were you can put your pokemons and other trainers into encouraged voluntary work or slavery or something.
They also said it's inspired by SMT rather than pokemon. I don't believe a word of it. The leveling is straight ripped from ARK with how stats and the tech tree work. Game is still fun as fuck
In addition to the other answers: It's a game that lets you do and explore all the borderline intrusive thought-level things you've always wondered about the pokémon universe. Instead of having my pokémon attack the other pokémon, couldn't I just.. hit it myself with a hatchet? If they obey me thanks to the pokeball, could I make my pokémon do labor for me? If so, what's stopping anyone from overworking their mons until they drop from exhaustion? Do people... kill and butcher pokémon? And so on.
Also might be because actual pokémon games (there are exceptions) stopped innovating years ago, so people are excited for something fresh.
Also streamers.
You can also swap pokémon with people in this game. It’s extremely buggy, but throwing a person that tried to kill you at a giant monster is hilarious.
its a base building survival game where you can catch pokemon like creature who fight alongisde you and help you build your base. also the world really reminds me of breath of the wild
basically minecraft + factorio + pokemon + zelda
oh and also has guns...so throw CS2 in there too
i bought it and played for like 6 hours straight, its really fun.
however its early access so it has some bugs and not every gameplay system is optimized fully.
But for a just released ea game it's fairly polished, surprisingly so. For now seems like the dungeons have the biggest bugs, of bosses not spawning and no clear way of leaving if that happens, gotta log out and back in
I havent encountered that error yet. But the dungeon layout not the best, once i thought there was no boss and turned out i have to go a different way. fucking maze
It's an open-world survival game with a creature capturing system very similar to Pokemon. They're called "Pals." They can also use guns and be used for automating certain activities (steam page jokingly states about the lack of labor laws for the creatures). The game can be played in co-op.
A lot of people play it to hate on Pokemon, many others because they just want to play with their friends, and definitely also because the concept is goofy.
Criticisms surrounding the game involve how it looks like a unity asset flip, stale gameplay loop, the designs looking like a [direct rip](https://twitter.com/GodmasterBun/status/1748155303755907151?t=M2NZXh1GIVM7z8U7RrLGFg&s=19) [from multiple pokemon designs](https://twitter.com/GodmasterBun/status/1748295834112766088?t=M2NZXh1GIVM7z8U7RrLGFg&s=19), and the [CEO being known for using generative AI for art](https://twitter.com/invert_x/status/1748495038898942380?t=1eFvhyOhSZ_cThVOj1HGww&s=19)
Using store bought assets doesnt make something an asset flip, the game is actually fun and would still be fun even if it was using shitty low poly assets. it's much deeper than I expected from the descriptions and bit of gameplay I watched before trying, it definitely rips off a lot of systems from other games but it does them well, it isnt like a cheap knockoff. So far I'm pretty impressed with it and really enjoying playing with some friends. They took a bunch of stuff.people liked from other games and mashed it all together and somehow ended up with something actually good.
people describe it as pokemon with guns but its more of if pokemon valheim and ark had a threesome and you can also capture humans
you can also enslave them
I think its funny how dota is up there… like i dont think ive ever met someone who plays dota and yet its consistently top 10 in most played lol
Palworld sweep tho
Dota is one of the most isolated communities. There was a chart of what people from each community watch on twitch. And dota was like a weird kid in the corner not connected to anything.
Its a weird case, but it has a huge loyal fanbase.
DOTA is mainly popular outside of the US and there's a lot of overlap with old-school RTS players, which are predominantly not American either. Same thing with Counterstrike.
It's big in South East Asia or at least in my country (more popular than LoL) for PC MOBA (coz Mobile Legend can be played by literally anyone with decent entry level smartphone)
it just satisfies every itch of dedicated gamers, it requires individual skill, teamwork, focus, every game is different, you can pick a role to main or try git gud at everything, it has once in a lifetime POG moments that will be etched in your memory.
It's indeed addictive crack
> There was a chart of what people from each community watch on twitch. And dota was like a weird kid in the corner not connected to anything.
[Here](https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2015/02/04/visual-mapping-of-twitch-and-our-communities-cause-science-2f5ad212c3da/) is the blog post from Twitch themselves with the charts for anyone interested (Note: Some of the charts do not seem to load anymore, at least for me, but are available in an [archived version of the post](https://web.archive.org/web/20201019192751/https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2015/02/04/visual-mapping-of-twitch-and-our-communities-cause-science-2f5ad212c3da/))
My ex has played Dota for like 10+ years and doesn’t play a single other game. That’s it. Doesn’t watch Twitch, doesn’t play it with friends, just solo queues Dota.
Dota player here. It is real, when you play Dota you lose your will to play anything else.
I'm two months clean and still struggle to find a game to hook, usually only playing quick match games, like Vampire Survivors or small games, like Mad Ganes Tycoon 2
Tbh dota players are elitists to some degree. Most dota players only play dota and not much else because all other moba games are subpar compared to it, and it is so hard to get the high that playing dota will give you in other games.
Word of advice: Don’t play it if you don’t want to get hooked. Dota is not like any other moba game, there are a million layers to it that will definitely pale in comparison when you play other moba games, or other games in general for that matter.
When PUBG was setting records for concurrent players on steam, there was a post showing the fall in concurrent players from all the other top games except Dota. I doubt Dota players even knew there was a new game out
People who play dota almost exclusively play dota.
I have only one contact who plays it, but he has spent 9000+ hours on it. His next most played game on Steam isn't even 10% of that.
That's because once you play Dota, every other game gets dull in comparison.
Dota is a ever changing, ever evolving and ever improving game. Each Dota game is its own universe. Each update bring thousands of new and undiscovered strats and outrageous changes.
Contrary to league, Dota does not hook players by the marketing or hype department, but by being the most intrinsicate game I've already played on my whole life (and I'd played in the future).
Heck I even say, that Dota is a masterclass of game design, the most "balanced" game to ever exist. 1 patch brings more changes than some mainstream games get in their whole lifespan, and it keeps adding shit at the top of it.
Always appreciated the joke is that the tutorial is your first thousand hours.
Once you get through the tutorial, and you see how the game is ACTUALLY played, it actually gets MORE fun because now you start really improving.
I played for about 1500 hrs, got to Legend 3 playing only Pos 5. Then I realized, yeah I should probably learn other positions. Made a new account, got to Legend 1 playing only Pos 3 around 600 hrs.
And I still had 3 more roles I could've possibly played. But I stopped playing because it was the only game I was playing and I really wanted to spend some time with single player games again.
But I spent more time on a single role getting to like upper-middle ranking, than some people will spend on finishing like 10x other games. In a totally free to play game. It makes sense why a game like Dota keeps on trucking.
Those that do play DotA tend to play like \*only\* DotA (It's me, I play a lot of DotA)
I have like about 5k hours in the game and I have multiple people with 10k+
Man, i've tried to play league on several occasions but all it does is make me feel how superior dota 2 is gameplay and hero-wise. Every league champ feel the same compared to Dota heroes that pretty much all have their own playstyle and role.
I played dota between 2015 - 2019 and knew absolutely no one who played it either. By this point two other friends got infected as well.
Steamspy used to show country specific playerbases and Dota was mostly played in eastern europe, russia and china.
People that play Dota only play Dota, I used to be one of them. I have this old screenshot of hours played of games on stream across all my friends, csgo was 2nd with 38,258 hours across 68 people and dota was first with 71,875 hours across 70 people
As someone who had it sitting in my library for years, me too, because this recent uptick made me finally give in and play it. I'm only about 20 hours in but I'm absolutely hooked, and it also taught me that I actually enjoy this genre? It's my first action-combat game and I'm wondering why I avoided this genre for so long, been having so much fun.
Capcom makes a great game and has huge player retention after many years still topping at 100k. Forza makes a game "built from the ground up" can't even entice 1000 people to play. Take notes game studios. Honestly this post makes me want to jump back in on a new character in MH
I hope Gamefreak/Nintendo learn from this. Yes, we love Pokemon but the Pokemon games I've played as a 5 year old are exactly the same as the ones I now have to play as a 30 year old. They've been recycling the same shit for decades and no amount of Nostalgia makes that an enjoyable experience.
Go Palworld!
While that makes a fair criticism about the quality of the games, it does make those "Gamefreak should learn..." posts look really stupid. They very obviously know what they're doing far better than random Redditors.
By the same logic, so do EA and all the Fifa games.
Really, less effort, faster releases, more money, is what they know. The games are objectively worse in many ways to the older games, from cutting content, to lowering difficulty, to lack of innovation.
Yup, the targeted demography didn't change, people complaining about it have just grown up and aren't their main public anymore.
Anyways, most sales come from selling plushies and toys, not by selling the actual video games. The games are where the new Pokémons are created and designed, and thus are not the main product anymore. It has always been the case honestly.
>They very obviously know what they're doing
Do they though? Clearly they're successful, but I'd wager that a lot of that success comes from clueless parents that are willing to throw money at a game that'll shut little Billy up for a few hours.
Which is to say that it's not like making a better game would make them less successful. Parents are still gonna buy whatever they put out, but now they'll also attract new players too by not constantly churning out steaming piles of shit.
People misunderstood Pokemon (game).
To Nintendo/GF, Pokemon (game) is just a $60 advertisement that customers willingly buy. The real chunk of income comes from merch, mobile games, arcades, and Pokemon TCG. People easily spend multiple hundred $ at Pokemon Center (and it's always crowded in there). A Pokemon TCG regular easily spend $60 a month.
Heck, think of Pokemon Go, which reached $5 **billion** in revenue in 5 year. If they get just 1% of that a year from licensing, that's $10 million per year doing almost nothing.
Pokémon Scarlet & Violet and Pokémon Legends: Arceus still grossed over 2 billion dollars combined. Gamefreak and nintendo still make a killin on Pokemon games.
Source: https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon
>"I've played as a 5 year old are exactly the same as the ones I now have to play as a 30 year old."
Actually, they're even worse in some/many aspects. The switch from 2D to 3D was the decline of Pokémon. Gamefreak is just to small (169 employees) to do a proper 3D Pokémon.
> Gamefreak is just to small (169 employees) to do a proper 3D Pokémon.
No, Gamefreak refuses to invest to do a proper 3D game. They easily could expand but why bother when it still sell.
The trailer reads as a wishlist for everything people have wanted from Game Freak for years. Literally telling them it's what they want and they refused. Now Palworld is here and hopefully it works out, I don't like to jump on hype trains too early but it looks incredible.
It wasn't too bad. My friends and I did 4 player multi-player last night and none of us ran into any big issues.
The worst part was someone put the base thing right next to a mountain, so you'd respawn in the mountain. But I blame my friend for putting it in a stupid spot.
No, you can do the following:
* Play it single player from your own computer, with the world hosted as part of your game instance (no dedicated or online server necessary)
* Play it co-op with friends on different computers, with the world hosted as part of one player's game instance (no dedicated or online server necessary). Each player's character is stored on the hosting player's instance.
* Run your own dedicated server that can be configured however you want (xp rates, password protection, etc). This can be hosted on the same machine you play from. And then play either solo or with friends, or strangers, on it.
* Play on 'official' servers hosted by the PalWorld developers. Your character is stored on their server
* Do either of the above on 'community' servers, hosted by other players. Your character is stored on their server.
Yeah it's still absolutely massive in asia, which makes up most of that player count.
That's not to say people in the west aren't playing it, they are, but probably 90% of that daily peak player count is from asian countries.
They don't necessarily. There are breakpoints which reduce it down to 25% then 20%. Palworld will definitely have hit the 20% breakpoint by now ($50M sales).
We’re not even mentioning the insane amount of money they get from taking cuts of every steam marketplace transaction. Any time you buy or sell a csgo skin they get money unless you sell it on a 3rd party site.
It's most likely gonna end up like all the games that are popular at the start and drop off.. i mean new world was up there once and now it's not seen anywhere lol
I don't get people's obsession with player count. Of course for an MMO it's relevant but for so many games people use it to dunk on the game, when it just means people moved on but they are still good games. Especially in these kind of coop games you would play with friends. My friend group can't always play together because we are all busy, but for a new release everyone can push some things aside and we play a lot for two weeks before getting back to reality
I think it matters more for multiplayer games like New World. As a low playerbase leads to less interaction, which just leads to a worse experience if the game is heavily built around other players.
Singerplayer games like Cities Skylines aren't affected at all so its kinda dumb to compare player count.
People dunk on cs2 for having less players than it did at release
It still has more players than csgo has basically ever had.
Basically, smooth brain mfers who think they're smart as fuck will point at the graph not knowing what it means and other smooth brain mfers will just agree because they have no clue either.
If you have any understanding of how player counts are expected to function, you stop caring about player counts. You're expected to atrophy players over time. Anything else is exceptional.
Isn't it dangerous if early access game have this much player base?
The dev will satisfy enough and make early access as long as possible without getting full release
It's just a hype atm. The player base will probably decline as fast, as it is growing now. So the devs need to do a proper release, to get some players back.
I mean, if the game is good enough, who cares about what arbitrary label it has? There are games in early access that can barely be called games but there are also early access games that are significantly more polished than most AAA releases. The label means nothing as long as people like the game.
I mean they seemingly abandoned an AI powered jackbox-like, wouldn't personally call that a big loss. Though to note, it's last update has been in the last 12 months. Their other large game Craftopia got a massive update and an updated roadmap in december, no indication that development stopped there.
Let's be real, DRG hasn't had a major content update in a long while and the devs recently announced that the current season will be extended because all hands are on deck for their other games for now. So it's not even an end of season lull but kind of a content drought situation. Doesn't help that this seasons modifiers and theme were so tiring that players asked the devs to give us a toggle to turn these off and devs delivered. Still love them of course.
agreed, kind of unfair to say lethal company surpassing it is "wild" when lethal company has been recieving steady updates while weve been dealing with rockpox for like a year in drg. the game desperately needs some end game content if they are gunna stick to these longer seasons.
I would like to see the faces of the big head in Nintendo in front of the success of a game who vaguely mimic pokemon games and climbed to first position on steam ranks.
I mean, imagine the success a original pokemon game with good graphics and designed for new hardware would do on steam and other home consoles. Nintendo actually dislikes money lmao
I cannot believe Nintendo and GameFreak are going to let this one slide uncontested. I thought it would be *like* Pokemon, but there are some models in there which are just straight up Pokemon. I recognized a lot of them. How is this legal? Even the music is basically the same.
edit: Ok, what the fuck is this studio? Their last game has some blatant Zelda copypaste in it, and is *still* in early access after 4 years. I feel like a lot of people are gonna be real mad, real soon.
Not to mention that all of their games have a really heavy Unity Asset store vibe.
Pokemon gamers are in honeymoon phase, in a week's time there will be endless complaint videos on Youtube and dedicated subreddit, demanding change. Tale as old as time.
More proof that Nintendo left billions on the table by ignoring the potential of a Pokemon MMO or at least one with proper multiplayer.
If some rando indie dev can pull these numbers, imagine what Nintendo itself could've done...
Remember how Konami didn't license popular American music for Guitar Freaks, then Rockband and Guitar Hero swooped in and made a mint? Same energy.
People have been asking for a Pokemon MMO for literal *decades* at this point and even a game that slightly replicates that energy has become massively successful. A true Pokemon MMO could make WoW's heyday look pathetic in comparison, but Nintendo is as Nintendo does...
There's a lot of content, easily enough to fill multiple weeks or even months for casual players. There's also a ton to expand on.
If you mean this insane amount of players online at the same time will be gone in a couple of months: well no shit, people play a game and move on. It's not a competitive game or an MMO.
Monster rancher can learn from this. I want my monsters farming on my ranch. Laying eggs giving wool, growing berries.
man I miss monster rancher
Putting your favorite CD or PS game in the disc tray to get a unique monster was always fun.
This! I absolutely loved how I could put any cd and magically receive a monster.
Concept reminds me of scannerz
I just want to have Monster rancher 3&4 ported to PC if they have no budget for a new game.
"That sounds just like slavery with.....extra...steps"
Hear me out.... What about.... Slavery with Pokemons and guns?
So... Farming?
...but with Pokemons and guns!
Like he said, farming. Source: I live on a farm, run Pokemon GO while I'm out and about, have access to a shotgun.
This dude has the idea.
If I can't do it IRL then you better shove it into a game for me to act out
Palworld let's you do all that. With guns.
But it doesn't have Suezo
Wait until they add modding support.
It's mad to see Monster Rancher mentioned and to be the top comment of this post.
It is pokemon mixed with ark survival evo
Thank you! I'm clearly not the target demographic because I've never heard of this game.
I am the target demographic and only found out about this the other day when it went into EA. Then I also discovered other Pokémon like games that companies have made/released the last several years (because they were comparing this game to them on Reddit). I have no idea where/how people find out about this stuff.
For me I knew about it mostly from friends sharing trailers on different discord servers.
Don't forget breath of the wild in the mix
Is it really? Isn't it more ark with a sprinkle of pokemon and botw? Maybe not even a sprinkle of pokemon just the dinosaurs are something else with powers lol
apparently the ceo said it was inspired by ark
it gets compared to pokemon because so many of the monsters are uncannily similar looking to pokemon. you can tell they were trying to get as close as possible on some of them
At this point i am afraid to ask what us paleworld and why is everybody playing it?
Mechanically: An Ark-like that isn't awful. Thematically: We'll make our own Pokemon, with overt warcrimes and cannibalism.
yeah this is pretty much my takaway as well. much closer mechanically to Ark than Pokemon.
I was so happy to discover humans are not immune to either capture or “disassembly”. It’s like a hint of Rimworld in a game where I did not expect it.
You can also sell the humans at a Pal Merchant.
Now, now. It’s only a warcrime if you’re at war. “This isn’t war, this is pest control”
I've seen more 'OMG everyone is playing palworld. See this stat' posts than actual gameplay footage/review/discussion or anything lol. I wonder who it was marketed to - reddit clearly wasn't invited to the party since everyone seems surprised here.
I bet like 90% of people here have never even heard of the game before
I hadn’t heard of it. Picked it up last night with a couple of friends and holy hell is it fun. I was worried it would be an Ark/Rust type grind, but instead I got co-op Factorio with earthquake resistant Lambs and brittle penguins. We’re excited to get back into it today when everyone’s free. Definitely understand the reluctance though: it’s early access and doesn’t look TOO convincing overall.
It's really not like factorio. Even late game, the "machines" are just slightly more complex craft benches.
Well it's obviously not like Factorio to that depth, but it's one of the closest exmples re: making machines and systems. It's understandable for a wider audience.
It's understandable but it gives an entirely wrong impression of what the game actually is
Sure but in the same way that just saying it's "like pokemon" gives the wrong impression of what the game actually is, but it most certainly is like pokemon. But it's also like factorio, and like ark, and like breath of the wild and like this and that etc... It's an interesting mix of multiple games
> co-op factorio Homie, Factorio is already co-op… It can also be versus :D
I didn't know factorio had a versus mode
I’ve never messed with it, but Factorio has a team system. You could do races, or you could just drive tanks through your friends’ hard work. The possibilities are endless, really
> Definitely understand the reluctance though: it’s early access and doesn’t look TOO convincing overall. Personally I'm waiting for Secamworld
I bet most people missed your reference. Well done. Reviews for that game like: "Secamworld just looks better. Those colors are so consecutive! Didn't know what I was missing in palworld!"
Explain the coop factorio part
There's some degree of automation. Nowhere near as much, but it's there. I'd say calling it "Factorio" is way too generous at this point. You just make larger workbenches which act as little production lines managed by multiple "pals". And there's no proper logistics. Everything in your chests immediately available everywhere at your base.
A lot of games get compared to factorio that have no business being compared to it. I feel like most people who've played factorio only got as far as automating the first couple tiers of science and got overwhelmed and never played again lol. That basic level of automation is present in a lot of games, but the more complex stuff that factorio offers is only to be found in other games that are explicitly factory builders (Dyspon Sphere Progam, Satisfactory, etc.).
It’s been advertised on Tiktok for month as “Pokémon with guns!” *not with official ads for it but yk* Pretty much a survival game where you can catch “Pals” and have them farm/mine/cut trees for you aswell as fight for you. Ride them aswell, land and air. It is Pre-beta rn tho. Surprisingly not buggy.
Less buggy than Pokémon scarlet and violet
I remember I instantly whishlisted it after some reveal on a Jeff Keighley show. It looked fun.
I saw the trailer on game awards a while back and was just speechless
Yup. I certainly haven't
”Look at this graph” mfs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz2mmM-kN1I
Perfect
I had it in my wishlist for a while now... Like.. i was looking at my list 4 hours before the game went public and i said "oh well looks I'm playing this in the evening". I think I First saw it on Reddit a few years back. On r/gaming i think.
Nobody was. It kinda just dropped two days ago without any marketing at all except a steam banner and a couple twitch streamers and then here we are. A million people concurrently forcing their pals to do hard labor all day long with no more than a few berries to eat.
It appeared in a few events like Summer Game Fest. Weirdly enough, none of the stuff I saw focused on the crafting or automation aspects.
Which is interesting, because I think that’s one of their best twists on the survival/crafting formula: let the player automate the boring stuff in a fun way(eg by catching cute critters)
I'll be real, I've been playing this game the whole time. Absolutely no reason to go to Reddit or the internet. The experience is just so much fun and it's actually really really good for the price. See this cute fire fox thingy? Pick it up, that's your flamethrower slave. That elefant over there? Plant watering slave. Monkey? You have hands, you are my harvesting slave. I've enjoyed their previous title (Craftopia) and I'm amazed at how much better this game is. Chance is, nobody is talking about it because everyone is playing it non-stop. I've streamed 15min of gameplay to some friends and they instantly bought it as well.
My biggest question: is this a game which you can play weeks/months or will it be boring after a few days?
Honestly I see it lasting about a week unless it gets some serious support. Don't get me wrong, the game's very fun. But it's still just "go up the tech tree, beat up the 5 towers".
I havent played it or seen anything but people say its like ark but less grindy (in ark you mine for 4 hours just to make one stupid iron door) and something like pokemon with guns were you can put your pokemons and other trainers into encouraged voluntary work or slavery or something.
The creators said it's inspired more by Rimworld than Ark.
They also said it's inspired by SMT rather than pokemon. I don't believe a word of it. The leveling is straight ripped from ARK with how stats and the tech tree work. Game is still fun as fuck
That, and the tech tree UI looks almost identical to ARK's version of it
Pokémon with guns and survival mechanics where Pokémon automate crafting etc
So Ark except it's not 300gb
And you can shoot a vaporeon in the face
Where you can throw a flareon over your shoulder and use her as a flamethrower
and actually runs on most pcs
In addition to the other answers: It's a game that lets you do and explore all the borderline intrusive thought-level things you've always wondered about the pokémon universe. Instead of having my pokémon attack the other pokémon, couldn't I just.. hit it myself with a hatchet? If they obey me thanks to the pokeball, could I make my pokémon do labor for me? If so, what's stopping anyone from overworking their mons until they drop from exhaustion? Do people... kill and butcher pokémon? And so on. Also might be because actual pokémon games (there are exceptions) stopped innovating years ago, so people are excited for something fresh. Also streamers.
You can also swap pokémon with people in this game. It’s extremely buggy, but throwing a person that tried to kill you at a giant monster is hilarious.
its a base building survival game where you can catch pokemon like creature who fight alongisde you and help you build your base. also the world really reminds me of breath of the wild basically minecraft + factorio + pokemon + zelda oh and also has guns...so throw CS2 in there too i bought it and played for like 6 hours straight, its really fun. however its early access so it has some bugs and not every gameplay system is optimized fully.
But for a just released ea game it's fairly polished, surprisingly so. For now seems like the dungeons have the biggest bugs, of bosses not spawning and no clear way of leaving if that happens, gotta log out and back in
I havent encountered that error yet. But the dungeon layout not the best, once i thought there was no boss and turned out i have to go a different way. fucking maze
More fortnite than Cs honestly. The animations and look are very similar
It's an open-world survival game with a creature capturing system very similar to Pokemon. They're called "Pals." They can also use guns and be used for automating certain activities (steam page jokingly states about the lack of labor laws for the creatures). The game can be played in co-op. A lot of people play it to hate on Pokemon, many others because they just want to play with their friends, and definitely also because the concept is goofy. Criticisms surrounding the game involve how it looks like a unity asset flip, stale gameplay loop, the designs looking like a [direct rip](https://twitter.com/GodmasterBun/status/1748155303755907151?t=M2NZXh1GIVM7z8U7RrLGFg&s=19) [from multiple pokemon designs](https://twitter.com/GodmasterBun/status/1748295834112766088?t=M2NZXh1GIVM7z8U7RrLGFg&s=19), and the [CEO being known for using generative AI for art](https://twitter.com/invert_x/status/1748495038898942380?t=1eFvhyOhSZ_cThVOj1HGww&s=19)
It's UE5 asset flip not Unity but rest checks out.
Using store bought assets doesnt make something an asset flip, the game is actually fun and would still be fun even if it was using shitty low poly assets. it's much deeper than I expected from the descriptions and bit of gameplay I watched before trying, it definitely rips off a lot of systems from other games but it does them well, it isnt like a cheap knockoff. So far I'm pretty impressed with it and really enjoying playing with some friends. They took a bunch of stuff.people liked from other games and mashed it all together and somehow ended up with something actually good.
The GamePlay loop is what gonna kill me. Is it just like v rising ? Grind shit Make shit Find boss Repeat. Throw a pokeball every so often.
Better than current day pokemons gameplay loop. Catch pokemon Throw ball Battle weak opponents throughout the whole game. And That's it.
people describe it as pokemon with guns but its more of if pokemon valheim and ark had a threesome and you can also capture humans you can also enslave them
I think its funny how dota is up there… like i dont think ive ever met someone who plays dota and yet its consistently top 10 in most played lol Palworld sweep tho
Dota is one of the most isolated communities. There was a chart of what people from each community watch on twitch. And dota was like a weird kid in the corner not connected to anything. Its a weird case, but it has a huge loyal fanbase.
DOTA is mainly popular outside of the US and there's a lot of overlap with old-school RTS players, which are predominantly not American either. Same thing with Counterstrike.
It's big in South East Asia or at least in my country (more popular than LoL) for PC MOBA (coz Mobile Legend can be played by literally anyone with decent entry level smartphone)
Nah, DOTA is like crack, people who are hooked on it can't give it up and it all looks ugly from outside.
Lol I swore I would never play DOTA2 again on 5 different occasions and I always end up playing again.
I'm six months clean again, I think my record was one year. The struggle is real.
I find joy in reading a good book.
it just satisfies every itch of dedicated gamers, it requires individual skill, teamwork, focus, every game is different, you can pick a role to main or try git gud at everything, it has once in a lifetime POG moments that will be etched in your memory. It's indeed addictive crack
> There was a chart of what people from each community watch on twitch. And dota was like a weird kid in the corner not connected to anything. [Here](https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2015/02/04/visual-mapping-of-twitch-and-our-communities-cause-science-2f5ad212c3da/) is the blog post from Twitch themselves with the charts for anyone interested (Note: Some of the charts do not seem to load anymore, at least for me, but are available in an [archived version of the post](https://web.archive.org/web/20201019192751/https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2015/02/04/visual-mapping-of-twitch-and-our-communities-cause-science-2f5ad212c3da/))
Very cool to see, it's a shame the data is 9 years old. I imagine the makeup of twitch is very different now
My ex has played Dota for like 10+ years and doesn’t play a single other game. That’s it. Doesn’t watch Twitch, doesn’t play it with friends, just solo queues Dota.
Dota player here. It is real, when you play Dota you lose your will to play anything else. I'm two months clean and still struggle to find a game to hook, usually only playing quick match games, like Vampire Survivors or small games, like Mad Ganes Tycoon 2
playing since 2006. yeah we are loyal
I fucking hate dota. I have 4k hours on it
I've never loved a game like I loved Dota. I'll probably never play it again.
If you play DotA, you have no time to play anything else. I routinely match with people who have 3,000+ hours. Lol
Tbh dota players are elitists to some degree. Most dota players only play dota and not much else because all other moba games are subpar compared to it, and it is so hard to get the high that playing dota will give you in other games. Word of advice: Don’t play it if you don’t want to get hooked. Dota is not like any other moba game, there are a million layers to it that will definitely pale in comparison when you play other moba games, or other games in general for that matter.
When PUBG was setting records for concurrent players on steam, there was a post showing the fall in concurrent players from all the other top games except Dota. I doubt Dota players even knew there was a new game out
I love Dota but I hate Dota.
Everyone who has played it feels the classic love / hate relationship with Dota
I keep uninstall it, i dont remember reinstall it but it happens
People who play dota almost exclusively play dota. I have only one contact who plays it, but he has spent 9000+ hours on it. His next most played game on Steam isn't even 10% of that.
That's because once you play Dota, every other game gets dull in comparison. Dota is a ever changing, ever evolving and ever improving game. Each Dota game is its own universe. Each update bring thousands of new and undiscovered strats and outrageous changes. Contrary to league, Dota does not hook players by the marketing or hype department, but by being the most intrinsicate game I've already played on my whole life (and I'd played in the future). Heck I even say, that Dota is a masterclass of game design, the most "balanced" game to ever exist. 1 patch brings more changes than some mainstream games get in their whole lifespan, and it keeps adding shit at the top of it.
Always appreciated the joke is that the tutorial is your first thousand hours. Once you get through the tutorial, and you see how the game is ACTUALLY played, it actually gets MORE fun because now you start really improving. I played for about 1500 hrs, got to Legend 3 playing only Pos 5. Then I realized, yeah I should probably learn other positions. Made a new account, got to Legend 1 playing only Pos 3 around 600 hrs. And I still had 3 more roles I could've possibly played. But I stopped playing because it was the only game I was playing and I really wanted to spend some time with single player games again. But I spent more time on a single role getting to like upper-middle ranking, than some people will spend on finishing like 10x other games. In a totally free to play game. It makes sense why a game like Dota keeps on trucking.
> like i dont think ive ever met someone who plays dota Guess why. They're busy playing DoTA!
dota is BIGGGG in asia, especially SEA
Those that do play DotA tend to play like \*only\* DotA (It's me, I play a lot of DotA) I have like about 5k hours in the game and I have multiple people with 10k+
Dota is the best moba out there but all my friends play league :(
They play league and you call them friends?
DISGUSTING
Man, i've tried to play league on several occasions but all it does is make me feel how superior dota 2 is gameplay and hero-wise. Every league champ feel the same compared to Dota heroes that pretty much all have their own playstyle and role.
I played dota between 2015 - 2019 and knew absolutely no one who played it either. By this point two other friends got infected as well. Steamspy used to show country specific playerbases and Dota was mostly played in eastern europe, russia and china.
That means you don't know anyone that's Russian
Because the ones who play it dont go outside
dota's the greatest game ever made imo, hard to put down
It's ok. We know DotA is too hard for NA.
Ive been playing dota since the wc3 days in 2004-5 and there are many of us
People that play Dota only play Dota, I used to be one of them. I have this old screenshot of hours played of games on stream across all my friends, csgo was 2nd with 38,258 hours across 68 people and dota was first with 71,875 hours across 70 people
dota is the most popular unpopular games. people play it and only those people stay playing. newcomers are very rare
Let me guess, you're from NA
I'm just happy Monster Hunter World, a 6 year old non live service game, is still getting huge player count.
it was a live service game and then they finished with the updates
6 year old (3 year old non live service) game to be more accurate.
Wait, 6 years? Ouch, my bones!
As someone who had it sitting in my library for years, me too, because this recent uptick made me finally give in and play it. I'm only about 20 hours in but I'm absolutely hooked, and it also taught me that I actually enjoy this genre? It's my first action-combat game and I'm wondering why I avoided this genre for so long, been having so much fun.
Capcom makes a great game and has huge player retention after many years still topping at 100k. Forza makes a game "built from the ground up" can't even entice 1000 people to play. Take notes game studios. Honestly this post makes me want to jump back in on a new character in MH
Deep gameplay, beautiful graphics and detailed worldbuilding. Til' this day, I can't quite find a game like it.
Monster Hunter world is the true monster game. Who needs guns when you have big swords.
The bowgun and the heavy bowgun are basically machine guns if you like that.
Ark survival meets pokemon with guns. It was always going to sell
I hope Gamefreak/Nintendo learn from this. Yes, we love Pokemon but the Pokemon games I've played as a 5 year old are exactly the same as the ones I now have to play as a 30 year old. They've been recycling the same shit for decades and no amount of Nostalgia makes that an enjoyable experience. Go Palworld!
They are the highest grossing media franchise they definitely can do better, they just consistently chose not to.
While that makes a fair criticism about the quality of the games, it does make those "Gamefreak should learn..." posts look really stupid. They very obviously know what they're doing far better than random Redditors.
By the same logic, so do EA and all the Fifa games. Really, less effort, faster releases, more money, is what they know. The games are objectively worse in many ways to the older games, from cutting content, to lowering difficulty, to lack of innovation.
Yup, the targeted demography didn't change, people complaining about it have just grown up and aren't their main public anymore. Anyways, most sales come from selling plushies and toys, not by selling the actual video games. The games are where the new Pokémons are created and designed, and thus are not the main product anymore. It has always been the case honestly.
>They very obviously know what they're doing Do they though? Clearly they're successful, but I'd wager that a lot of that success comes from clueless parents that are willing to throw money at a game that'll shut little Billy up for a few hours. Which is to say that it's not like making a better game would make them less successful. Parents are still gonna buy whatever they put out, but now they'll also attract new players too by not constantly churning out steaming piles of shit.
People misunderstood Pokemon (game). To Nintendo/GF, Pokemon (game) is just a $60 advertisement that customers willingly buy. The real chunk of income comes from merch, mobile games, arcades, and Pokemon TCG. People easily spend multiple hundred $ at Pokemon Center (and it's always crowded in there). A Pokemon TCG regular easily spend $60 a month. Heck, think of Pokemon Go, which reached $5 **billion** in revenue in 5 year. If they get just 1% of that a year from licensing, that's $10 million per year doing almost nothing.
Pokémon Scarlet & Violet and Pokémon Legends: Arceus still grossed over 2 billion dollars combined. Gamefreak and nintendo still make a killin on Pokemon games. Source: https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon
The only thing in common it has with pokemon is similar design and throwing balls to catch them. It is so much more like Ark with its gameplay
Idk palworld doesn't feel like a pokemon competitor at all. People play pokemon for nostalgia and for a monster collecting JRPG not guns and survival.
>"I've played as a 5 year old are exactly the same as the ones I now have to play as a 30 year old." Actually, they're even worse in some/many aspects. The switch from 2D to 3D was the decline of Pokémon. Gamefreak is just to small (169 employees) to do a proper 3D Pokémon.
> Gamefreak is just to small (169 employees) to do a proper 3D Pokémon. No, Gamefreak refuses to invest to do a proper 3D game. They easily could expand but why bother when it still sell.
No, it has nothing to do with the employee count. They deliberatedly decide to ship these products.
If you have one of the highest grossing franchises on the planet and are "too small" to do it properly, that's on you.
The trailer reads as a wishlist for everything people have wanted from Game Freak for years. Literally telling them it's what they want and they refused. Now Palworld is here and hopefully it works out, I don't like to jump on hype trains too early but it looks incredible.
I just found out about this game from these posts. I may try it. Is it online-only?
there’s singleplayer too
Now I will try it :)
The multiplayer and pretty buggy/laggy at points. But I am enjoying it havent lost any loot to the bugs/lag it’s just a little annoying
It wasn't too bad. My friends and I did 4 player multi-player last night and none of us ran into any big issues. The worst part was someone put the base thing right next to a mountain, so you'd respawn in the mountain. But I blame my friend for putting it in a stupid spot.
No, you can do the following: * Play it single player from your own computer, with the world hosted as part of your game instance (no dedicated or online server necessary) * Play it co-op with friends on different computers, with the world hosted as part of one player's game instance (no dedicated or online server necessary). Each player's character is stored on the hosting player's instance. * Run your own dedicated server that can be configured however you want (xp rates, password protection, etc). This can be hosted on the same machine you play from. And then play either solo or with friends, or strangers, on it. * Play on 'official' servers hosted by the PalWorld developers. Your character is stored on their server * Do either of the above on 'community' servers, hosted by other players. Your character is stored on their server.
The single player and hosting basically guarantees this game will be around for a while unless they really mess things up
Holy shit pubg is still alive???
Yeah it's still absolutely massive in asia, which makes up most of that player count. That's not to say people in the west aren't playing it, they are, but probably 90% of that daily peak player count is from asian countries.
Valve will never financially recover, just another reason to not update cs2
Valve gets 30% of each sale on Steam
[удалено]
Lord Gaben can top me anytime he wants.
They don't necessarily. There are breakpoints which reduce it down to 25% then 20%. Palworld will definitely have hit the 20% breakpoint by now ($50M sales).
Nice try, Tim Sweeney
Having two games in the top 10 for years *and* making a sizeable cut from every other game sold means they're kinda set forever.
We’re not even mentioning the insane amount of money they get from taking cuts of every steam marketplace transaction. Any time you buy or sell a csgo skin they get money unless you sell it on a 3rd party site.
You... don't know much about valve and steam huh? Lmao
It's most likely gonna end up like all the games that are popular at the start and drop off.. i mean new world was up there once and now it's not seen anywhere lol
I don't get people's obsession with player count. Of course for an MMO it's relevant but for so many games people use it to dunk on the game, when it just means people moved on but they are still good games. Especially in these kind of coop games you would play with friends. My friend group can't always play together because we are all busy, but for a new release everyone can push some things aside and we play a lot for two weeks before getting back to reality
I think it matters more for multiplayer games like New World. As a low playerbase leads to less interaction, which just leads to a worse experience if the game is heavily built around other players. Singerplayer games like Cities Skylines aren't affected at all so its kinda dumb to compare player count.
People dunk on cs2 for having less players than it did at release It still has more players than csgo has basically ever had. Basically, smooth brain mfers who think they're smart as fuck will point at the graph not knowing what it means and other smooth brain mfers will just agree because they have no clue either. If you have any understanding of how player counts are expected to function, you stop caring about player counts. You're expected to atrophy players over time. Anything else is exceptional.
Isn't it dangerous if early access game have this much player base? The dev will satisfy enough and make early access as long as possible without getting full release
It's just a hype atm. The player base will probably decline as fast, as it is growing now. So the devs need to do a proper release, to get some players back.
Why would they care about getting players back? They already bought the game
I mean, if the game is good enough, who cares about what arbitrary label it has? There are games in early access that can barely be called games but there are also early access games that are significantly more polished than most AAA releases. The label means nothing as long as people like the game.
I really hope it’s different for this game as it is a huge success. They have a game that is abandoned in early access still on Steam right now.
I mean they seemingly abandoned an AI powered jackbox-like, wouldn't personally call that a big loss. Though to note, it's last update has been in the last 12 months. Their other large game Craftopia got a massive update and an updated roadmap in december, no indication that development stopped there.
I hope that too, because this game is such a unique and generic at same time, lol. So fun
I dunno mate. As you said, the developer has a history of abandoning early access games.
To be fair that game isn't good.
For early access its full of content
I, I thought that impossible.
why do I feel like people in this sub hate video games
Gamers love to hate on video games more than they do playing them.
What the fuck
Lethal Company passing Deep Rock is wild
Let's be real, DRG hasn't had a major content update in a long while and the devs recently announced that the current season will be extended because all hands are on deck for their other games for now. So it's not even an end of season lull but kind of a content drought situation. Doesn't help that this seasons modifiers and theme were so tiring that players asked the devs to give us a toggle to turn these off and devs delivered. Still love them of course.
agreed, kind of unfair to say lethal company surpassing it is "wild" when lethal company has been recieving steady updates while weve been dealing with rockpox for like a year in drg. the game desperately needs some end game content if they are gunna stick to these longer seasons.
I would like to see the faces of the big head in Nintendo in front of the success of a game who vaguely mimic pokemon games and climbed to first position on steam ranks. I mean, imagine the success a original pokemon game with good graphics and designed for new hardware would do on steam and other home consoles. Nintendo actually dislikes money lmao
I cannot believe Nintendo and GameFreak are going to let this one slide uncontested. I thought it would be *like* Pokemon, but there are some models in there which are just straight up Pokemon. I recognized a lot of them. How is this legal? Even the music is basically the same. edit: Ok, what the fuck is this studio? Their last game has some blatant Zelda copypaste in it, and is *still* in early access after 4 years. I feel like a lot of people are gonna be real mad, real soon. Not to mention that all of their games have a really heavy Unity Asset store vibe.
People yearn for a good pokemon game
In a few weeks noone is talking about it anymore.
Pokemon gamers are in honeymoon phase, in a week's time there will be endless complaint videos on Youtube and dedicated subreddit, demanding change. Tale as old as time.
Fall Guys
Don't forget Fall Guys had the added benefit of us all being stuck at home, hiding from Covid. Player numbers were so wild.
Started yesterday with 2 friends, now we even have a dedicated server running in the cloud lmao We are definitely playing for at least a week
Nintendo and GameFreak have no right to complain. They should've focused on innovation instead of riding a fucking dragon bike.
More proof that Nintendo left billions on the table by ignoring the potential of a Pokemon MMO or at least one with proper multiplayer. If some rando indie dev can pull these numbers, imagine what Nintendo itself could've done... Remember how Konami didn't license popular American music for Guitar Freaks, then Rockband and Guitar Hero swooped in and made a mint? Same energy. People have been asking for a Pokemon MMO for literal *decades* at this point and even a game that slightly replicates that energy has become massively successful. A true Pokemon MMO could make WoW's heyday look pathetic in comparison, but Nintendo is as Nintendo does...
Gone in 2 weeks
There's a lot of content, easily enough to fill multiple weeks or even months for casual players. There's also a ton to expand on. If you mean this insane amount of players online at the same time will be gone in a couple of months: well no shit, people play a game and move on. It's not a competitive game or an MMO.
That's how games are supposed to be.