An amazing game of creatures and disorderly chaos was recently just released for beta. Palworld, developed and published by indie company Pocketpair, was a massive success, reaching over 100,000 sales on Steam in its first week. 

Palworld is an open-world survival game that mixes aspects of Pokémon with guns and base-building. It can be played both in singleplayer and multiplayer and includes the ability to host your own private server from the comfort of your own computer. From my experience, hosting is surprisingly easy to do with the only downside being a few unexplained game crashes. 

I began the game on an island and created my very own “pal sphere” within the first few minutes of entering the game. “Pals” are various creatures that you can find anywhere in the game. They can be captured using “pal spheres” which can be used to fight, gather resources or operate a factory. It was relatively easy to make and made me burst out laughing because I learned I could trade away the pals I was supposed to make bonds with.

Within the first day of my playthrough, I had begun a factory where my pals were subjected to manual labor for days, even weeks on end without a break. I had also learned at this point that I could wear a pal on my head and have it wield a pistol. It was extremely funny watching it try to assist me during multiple boss fights but in the end proved to be a massive help.

Alongside the humorous labor came the various names and descriptions of some of the pals I had captured. My favorite is named “Depresso” and its skill is “Caffeine Inoculation” which allows for it to move extremely fast after it tears through an obscene amount of energy drinks. Its grouchy face always makes me want to pet it in real life. 

It was all fun and games until I learned of one very important thing. I could capture humans. In Palworld, there are hostile non-player characters called “Rayne Syndicates” which spawn at outposts in groups of 7-12. There are six different classes of these and all of them can be captured and used to work on your base. I had quite a bit of fun running around, fighting these syndicate members and gradually learning how to combat effectively. 

The game does get a bit boring at times as you have to spend hours in order to complete tasks that you are assigned but considering the comedic value of the game, I’ve put all that aside. The game was truly an enjoyable experience considering the fact it is still in a beta phase. I would highly recommend this game to anyone who wants to experience something nostalgic with Pokémon but still wants a funny twist to it. I look forward to seeing what updates the game receives and most certainly will get my friends to try this out.