Genuinely, people are shitting on it because it sells itself on a meme, is made by a dev with shady history, and likely has its creature designs aided strongly by an AI model trained on Pokemon.

With all that in mind, it punches WAY above its weight class. There’s shockingly little jank for an early access game this massive (it legitimately feels like a complete game worth paying for right now), the designs look super derivative but they’re nearly as well executed as the original Pokemon that inspired them so I’m still falling in love with everything I see, and the uniquely dark way they handle the subject matter gives it some sense of danger to the journey without getting in the way of critter companionship people seek out in a Pokemon game. I honestly can’t find much to fault at all. And any concerns that it won’t get future updates to smooth out rough edges, add more options and content are nuts, IMO. With the momentum this game has going, no chance the dev pulls out before making good on promises.

I wouldn’t say that anything Palworld is doing is groundbreaking on its own. Most critters feel like Pokemon parts and colors reassembled into new combinations. Exploration is a jankier clone of BOTW. The environment is way nicer looking and more interesting than anything from the last few Pokemon games but that’s hardly a high bar. Survival mechanics are uninspired. Base mechanics and managing active pals are pretty similar to Cult of the Lamb. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.