I expected this game to be a dumb edgy joke, but it's a well-crafted survival+pokemon+monster hunter game with a lot of love, and I'm hooked. 13 hours in one day, and I expect that to keep going up. If you like cute monster collecting and want to play a survival game themed around that, this is definitely a game to pick up. If the edgy "BUT THERE'S GUNS AND YOU CAN BUTCHER YOUR PALS" puts you off -- don't worry, it's not a huge aspect and can be largely ignored without missing anything.

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I expected this to be "dumb, edgy pokemon survival: the genre parody." An emphasis on guns on collected monsters? Killing said cute monsters? Survival elements? It all sounded like edge-for-the-sake-of-edge to me, and so when a friend asked me to play it with them, I told them I'd give it a 2 hour refund try first on my own. Just over 7 hours later, I realized what time it was and messaged them apologizing for not getting back to them.

Palworld is a GENUINELY good game. It takes the Pokemon formula and puts on well-thought-out survival mechanics, then throws in a small dash of Monster Hunter, and the resulting game is genuinely compelling. There's still a few moments of those edgy glimpses (as an example, you can use a butcher's cleaver to butcher your spare Pals, which has gratuitous butcher sounds and a censor filter), but for the most part if you're not into that, that's fine. It's a solid survival game that thoughtfully incorporates the Pals.

There are pretty much three core aspects to the game that are woven together with the premise beautifully -- base management, world exploration, and Pal collecting.

When it comes to base management, pretty much every task within your base can be automated by the right type of Pal, making it so that if you put enough effort in, you can go out with your Pals creature-collecting and return with everything having continued along without needing your touch. That's the case in many survival games, but having cute little (or not so little) monsters powering the automation, in my eyes, is a perfect extension of the genre. Taking care of their needs (stress, food) has enough to it to feel meaningful without feeling annoying and tedious either. My one complaint in this respect is that even if you SPECIFICALLY assign a monster to a certain perpetual task, sometimes they'll run off and do something else instead. As an example, I have a frosty Pal designated to chill my food to keep it from rotting -- but sometimes it will run off to go help deliver goods to my chest, or my previous one loved to run off and water plants. Hopefully this is something that will get fixed in EA, but for now, it's not a big dealbreaker. (And finding/picking more specialized Pals that can do fewer tasks does help with this.)

Exploration is really solid too. The world is hand-crafted and lovely. There are enough fast-travel points to get anywhere conveniently, but not so many that it feels like an Assassin's Creed level of jam-packed-with-nothing-meaningful map. I have a flying mount, and just flying around the landscape is genuinely fun to see the beauty of the world. My one complaint is that it doesn't really feel like there are 'biomes' in this game -- e.g. you can't really seek out an icy climate to hunt icy Pals, or a volcano for fire Pals. Instead, they're spread out over the entire map everywhere, which is fine, but I do wish there were visible and thematic biomes as well. There turn out to be a few biome areas, so this complaint is no longer relevant. It does take until VERY late into the game to actually get to them, which is a little disappointing, but they exist so I'm happy enough with that.

Probably one of the best (but most expected) strengths of the game is the Pals though. I'm not sure how many Pals are in the game, but certainly more than I expected from an Early Access survival game (where the genre standard is to launch in barebones states and maybe hopefully get more content later). The designs are largely simple but iconic -- think some of the middle generations of Pokemon (not just the "it's a crab with a face," nor the overdesigned messes of the ultrabeasts and some recent gens). I'm not going into specifics so that you can discover them yourself, but they tend to all have wonderful personality and a strong theme, and within minutes of starting, I had already found "Goals to Catch" pokemon even in the starter area.

Palworld is a game that takes two genres (creature collecting and survival) and merges them together almost flawlessly. It's clear that the devs are big fans of both genres and put the time and care in to make sure it was done right, despite launching as an Early Access game, and I strongly recommend playing this game if you like either and are down enough with the other.

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PS. Devs, if you see this. Sleeping Chillet plushie WHEN??



Edit: A previous version of this review mentioned slight procedural generation. That turned out to be wrong, so I removed it. The review otherwise stands.

Edit2: A previous version of this review mentioned a lack of biomes. I've adjusted that section as I got further into the game.

[h1]tl;dr:[/h1] I expected this game to be a dumb edgy joke, but it's a well-crafted survival+pokemon+monster hunter game with a lot of love, and I'm hooked. 13 hours in one day, and I expect that to keep going up. If you like cute monster collecting and want to play a survival game themed around that, this is definitely a game to pick up. If the edgy "BUT THERE'S GUNS AND YOU CAN BUTCHER YOUR PALS" puts you off -- don't worry, it's not a huge aspect and can be largely ignored without missing anything. [hr][/hr] I expected this to be "dumb, edgy pokemon survival: the genre parody." An emphasis on guns on collected monsters? Killing said cute monsters? Survival elements? It all sounded like edge-for-the-sake-of-edge to me, and so when a friend asked me to play it with them, I told them I'd give it a 2 hour refund try first on my own. Just over 7 hours later, I realized what time it was and messaged them apologizing for not getting back to them. Palworld is a GENUINELY good game. It takes the Pokemon formula and puts on well-thought-out survival mechanics, then throws in a small dash of Monster Hunter, and the resulting game is genuinely compelling. There's still a few moments of those edgy glimpses (as an example, you can use a butcher's cleaver to butcher your spare Pals, which has gratuitous butcher sounds and a censor filter), but for the most part if you're not into that, that's fine. It's a solid survival game that thoughtfully incorporates the Pals. There are pretty much three core aspects to the game that are woven together with the premise beautifully -- base management, world exploration, and Pal collecting. When it comes to base management, pretty much every task within your base can be automated by the right type of Pal, making it so that if you put enough effort in, you can go out with your Pals creature-collecting and return with everything having continued along without needing your touch. That's the case in many survival games, but having cute little (or not so little) monsters powering the automation, in my eyes, is a perfect extension of the genre. Taking care of their needs (stress, food) has enough to it to feel meaningful without feeling annoying and tedious either. My one complaint in this respect is that even if you SPECIFICALLY assign a monster to a certain perpetual task, sometimes they'll run off and do something else instead. As an example, I have a frosty Pal designated to chill my food to keep it from rotting -- but sometimes it will run off to go help deliver goods to my chest, or my previous one loved to run off and water plants. Hopefully this is something that will get fixed in EA, but for now, it's not a big dealbreaker. (And finding/picking more specialized Pals that can do fewer tasks does help with this.) Exploration is really solid too. The world is hand-crafted and lovely. There are enough fast-travel points to get anywhere conveniently, but not so many that it feels like an Assassin's Creed level of jam-packed-with-nothing-meaningful map. I have a flying mount, and just flying around the landscape is genuinely fun to see the beauty of the world. [strike]My one complaint is that it doesn't really feel like there are 'biomes' in this game -- e.g. you can't really seek out an icy climate to hunt icy Pals, or a volcano for fire Pals. Instead, they're spread out over the entire map everywhere, which is fine, but I do wish there were visible and thematic biomes as well.[/strike] There turn out to be a few biome areas, so this complaint is no longer relevant. It does take until VERY late into the game to actually get to them, which is a little disappointing, but they exist so I'm happy enough with that. Probably one of the best (but most expected) strengths of the game is the Pals though. I'm not sure how many Pals are in the game, but certainly more than I expected from an Early Access survival game (where the genre standard is to launch in barebones states and maybe hopefully get more content later). The designs are largely simple but iconic -- think some of the middle generations of Pokemon (not just the "it's a crab with a face," nor the overdesigned messes of the ultrabeasts and some recent gens). I'm not going into specifics so that you can discover them yourself, but they tend to all have wonderful personality and a strong theme, and within minutes of starting, I had already found "Goals to Catch" pokemon even in the starter area. [h2]Summary[/h2] Palworld is a game that takes two genres (creature collecting and survival) and merges them together almost flawlessly. It's clear that the devs are big fans of both genres and put the time and care in to make sure it was done right, despite launching as an Early Access game, and I strongly recommend playing this game if you like either and are down enough with the other. [hr][/hr] PS. Devs, if you see this. Sleeping Chillet plushie WHEN?? Edit: A previous version of this review mentioned slight procedural generation. That turned out to be wrong, so I removed it. The review otherwise stands. Edit2: A previous version of this review mentioned a lack of biomes. I've adjusted that section as I got further into the game.