Category: Video Games

Amid the explosive launch of Palworld, its developers have taken to social media to say they have received death threats.

Last week, IGN reported on how Palworld, aka ‘Pokémon with guns’, had sparked a vociferous debate online about whether it had “ripped-off” Nintendo’s famous franchise.

Some Pokémon fans say Palworld’s Pals are too similar to Pokémon, with a number of social media posts that place Pals next to Pokémon going viral.

Palworld developer Pocketpair has insisted Palworld is more akin to survival crafting games such as Ark Survival Evolved and Valheim than Pokemon, but that hasn’t stopped people from continuing to hit out at the game.

Pocketpair community manager Bucky, who has been active on Twitter / X and Palworld’s Discord, posted to say they had received death threats since the game went live in early access form on January 19.

“Frantically working through all my DMs and emails! I promise!” Bucky said. “However, you’ll excuse me if I skip over the death threats, threats to the company and massively outlandish claims.

“If you’re capable of writing like an actual human being though, I’ll reply asap!”

Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe also tweeted to say they had received death threats, and hit out at “slanderous comments”.

“Currently, we are receiving slanderous comments against our artists, and we are seeing tweets that appear to be death threats,” Mizobe said.

“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.

“I would appreciate it if you would refrain from slandering the artists involved in Palworld.”

In a new interview published by Automaton, Mizobe addressed the question of potential legal issues surrounding Palworld’s release and its likeness to Pokémon. According to the site, Mizobe said Palworld cleared legal reviews, and insisted there has been no action taken against it by other companies.

Mizobe said: “We make our games very seriously, and we have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies.”

Last year, a new survey from the Game Developers Conference revealed a majority of game developers see harassment from players as a major problem for the industry. Of the 2,300 developers surveyed, 91% said player harassment and toxicity towards developers was an issue. 42% said it’s a “very serious” issue.

While Palworld is a clear smash hit, it is not without controversy. The Xbox version continues to lag behind the Steam version in terms of key features and updates, and Palworld’s enormous launch has seen its servers struggle, too.

Check out IGN’s Palworld Early Access Review in Progress to find out what we thought.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

While Palworld has enjoyed an enormous launch, there are a number of serious bugs affecting players. Developer Pocketpair said it’s working on issuing fixes, including for players who are unable to enter servers, unable to play multiplayer, and a dreaded lost saved data bug.

In a post on the Palworld Discord, community manager ‘Bucky’ said the developer had received over 50,000 inquiries since the game went on sale on January 19. “We sincerely apologize for the delay in response from our support team,” Bucky said.

Bucky said save data from single-player and co-op “may be able to be restored”, and pointed to a Google Doc with instructions to help. “We apologize for any inconvenience caused,” Bucky continued. “Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.”

Palworld has a particularly nasty bug that may cause the ‘Memory Reset Drug’, which is used to reset character stats, to permanently reduce the player’s capture power. Community manager Kei said Pocketpair is investigating this issue, and warned players not to use the item until a fix was issued.

Palworld has also suffered issues as players flood the servers. Pocketpair said that after concurrents across all platforms exceeded a whopping 1.3 million, the Epic Online Service experienced outages, causing connectivity issues with co-op and servers.

While Palworld is a clear smash hit, it is not without controversy. Last week IGN reported on how some Pokémon fans were taking to social media to point out striking similarities between Palworld’s Pals and the Pokémon themselves. Elsewhere, the Xbox version continues to lag behind the Steam version in terms of key features and updates. Palworld’s enormous launch has seen its servers struggle, too.

Check out IGN’s Palworld Early Access Review in Progress to find out what we thought.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Palworld’s astonishing success swelled over the weekend, with the ‘Pokémon with guns’ survival and crafting game shooting up Steam’s most-played games list and selling millions more copies.

Palworld launched on January 19 in early access form on Steam as well as on Xbox and Windows PC, day-and-date with Game Pass. Palworld overtook CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077 to set Steam’s fifth highest peak concurrent player count with 1,291,967 online at the same time on Valve’s platform. Palworld is currently the most-played game on Steam, ahead of behemoths Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and PUBG. It is just the sixth game ever to hit one million concurrents on Steam.

There are a number of Steam records that go along with this success on Steam. Palworld is now the most-played Japanese-developed game ever on Steam (its developer, PocketPair, is based in Tokyo), ahead of previous record holder, Elden Ring. And Palworld is the second most-played paid game ever on Steam, behind PUBG’s perhaps insurmountable peak concurrent figure of 3,257,248, which was set before the battle royale went free-to-play.

Meanwhile, Pocketpair said Palworld had sold over five million in about three days, with 86,000 copies selling per hour. For context, Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man sold 3.3 million copies in its first three days on sale, Sony Santa Monica Studio’s God of War sold 3.1 million in three days, and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us 2 sold 4 million in the same time period. Palworld, then, has sold faster than the fastest-selling first-party PS4 exclusive ever in a three-day sales window.

While Palworld is a clear smash hit, it is not without controversy. Last week IGN reported on how some Pokémon fans were taking to social media to point out striking similarities between Palworld’s Pals and the Pokémon themselves. Elsewhere, the Xbox version continues to lag behind the Steam version in terms of key features and updates. Palworld’s enormous launch has seen its servers struggle, too.

Check out IGN’s Palworld Early Access Review in Progress to find out what we thought.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Palworld’s astonishing success swelled over the weekend, with the ‘Pokémon with guns’ survival and crafting game shooting up Steam’s most-played games list and selling millions more copies.

Palworld launched on January 19 in early access form on Steam as well as on Xbox and Windows PC, day-and-date with Game Pass. Palworld overtook CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077 to set Steam’s fifth highest peak concurrent player count with 1,291,967 online at the same time on Valve’s platform. Palworld is currently the most-played game on Steam, ahead of behemoths Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and PUBG. It is just the sixth game ever to hit one million concurrents on Steam.

There are a number of Steam records that go along with this success on Steam. Palworld is now the most-played Japanese-developed game ever on Steam (its developer, PocketPair, is based in Tokyo), ahead of previous record holder, Elden Ring. And Palworld is the second most-played paid game ever on Steam, behind PUBG’s perhaps insurmountable peak concurrent figure of 3,257,248, which was set before the battle royale went free-to-play.

Meanwhile, Pocketpair said Palworld had sold over four million in about three days, with 86,000 copies selling per hour. For context, Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man sold 3.3 million copies in its first three days on sale, Sony Santa Monica Studio’s God of War sold 3.1 million in three days, and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us 2 sold 4 million in the same time period. Palworld, then, has matched the sales of the fastest-selling first-party PS4 exclusive ever in a three-day sales window.

While Palworld is a clear smash hit, it is not without controversy. Last week IGN reported on how some Pokémon fans were taking to social media to point out striking similarities between Palworld’s Pals and the Pokémon themselves. Elsewhere, the Xbox version continues to lag behind the Steam version in terms of key features and updates. Palworld’s enormous launch has seen its servers struggle, too.

Check out IGN’s Palworld Early Access Review in Progress to find out what we thought.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.