The first couple months of 2024 are stacked with huge video game releases, between Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, and Tekken 8. So, of course, "Pokémon with guns" is the one that steals all the thunder.
You may have heard about Palworld. It's a, er, quirky survival game that indeed involves creatures that look a lot like Pokémon (enough that there have been plagiarism accusations and eyebrows raised at The Pokémon Company) with firearms, among other things. And it's sold 5 million copies in a matter of days, releasing on Steam, Xbox, and Microsoft PC.
The point is that Palworld is weird, in good and bad ways. The entire things feels a little sleazy and it's slightly confusing that it's on Xbox Game Pass.
But you're probably wondering exactly how it's weird. Here are four bizarre things you can do in Palworld.
1. Punch cute little monsters
Palworld doesn't play quite like a Pokémon game. Instead, it shares more similarities with titles such as Ark, in that the first thing you do is punch trees and rocks so you can build a workbench. But that's not all. Palworld asks you to punch in the first half hour or so.
To build an army of Pals (the fake Pokémon in question), you need to capture some first. In order to capture some, you must build a Pal Sphere and throw it at them. Before you can capture them, you need to weaken them first. Naturally, the way to do this early on before you have weapons is to, well, simply approach one and punch the heck out of it.
This is where Palworld admittedly lost me in the early goings, as I'm not really interested in duking it out with cartoon sheep. But hey, maybe you're into that sort of thing.
2. Arm cute little monsters
Once you've done your Pal punching and built up a little army for yourself, it's time to turn them into a bonafide defense force. This is "Pokémon with guns," after all, so of course, you can give Pals guns.
There isn't really a lot else to say about this other than "some Pals can hold guns, so you can craft guns and give them to said Pals." At that point, you've got an adorable little virtual monkey holding an assault rifle or whatever. I hope you're proud of yourself. You turned an innocent creature into another cog in the war machine.
3. Put cute little monsters to work
The central thesis of Palworld as a survival game is that, eventually, you don't need to do all the boring survival game busywork yourself. Once you have a functioning base and a smattering of pals, you can place the ultimate burden of humanity upon Palworld's denizens: labor.
Pals have their own distinct skills that make them suited to different kinds of work, whether it's gathering, farming, or mining. Nobody actually likes punching trees to get wood for very long, so I suppose it's nice that Palworld lets you offload that labor to your Pals. That said, work is an entirely human creation and not something I would wish upon any critters.
4. Eat cute little monsters
Making and eating food is part of survival games. Naturally, Palworld is no different. You don't even need to ask: Yes, you can eat Pals in Palworld.
To do so, you need to get to level 12, craft a meat cleaver, and get to hacking away on whatever Pal you want to ingest. They'll drop meat, wool, and other resources, giving you materials to use however you see fit. Again, this is not something I would personally do. Pals are our friends. But you do you, player.
