Highlights

  • Palworld has been a huge success, selling over 5 million copies.
  • Some upset Pokemon fans have accused Palworld of plagiarizing Pokemon designs, leading to death threats against the developers.

The Palworld developers are reportedly receiving death threats, seemingly over the similarities between the game's creature designs and Pokemon. Palworld combines Minecraft-style survival mechanics with the thrill of monster catching to great effect. The game has been a massive success out of the gate, selling over 5 million copies despite being early access and readily available to play through Xbox Game Pass.

Developer Pocket Pair has to be thrilled with Palworld's incredible sales success, but the game's popularity has also resulted in some unfortunate headaches. For one, Palworld multiplayer has suffered from connectivity issues thanks to the sheer number of people trying to play the game. Secondly, some of the game's developers have been getting death threats from upset Pokemon fans who aren't happy about the game's similarities to their favorite franchise.

palworld assembly line
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This is according to Pocket Pair CEO Takuro Mizobe, who took to Twitter to address the online abuse that's been targeted at Palworld's art team, which he claims has included death threats. In his statement, Mizobe said that the game's designs are supervised "by multiple people" and that he is "responsible" for the game's production. Mizobe asked that people stop harassing the Palworld developers. Unfortunately, as Palworld's popularity continues to grow, one has to imagine that so too will the target on its back.

Some Pokemon fans are not happy about Palworld and have accused the game of ripping off Pokemon designs for its creatures. Evidence has been shared online showing very clear similarities between Pals and Pokemon, with some going as far as to accuse Pocket Pair of plagiarizing Pokemon. If there is solid evidence that Pocket Pair did indeed plagiarize Pokemon, one has to imagine The Pokemon Company and its lawyers will get involved. It should go without saying, but Pokemon fans who are genuinely upset about Palworld should leave the situation to The Pokemon Company - sending death threats to game developers is not going to accomplish anything.

It's unfortunate that Palworld's developers have been targeted by angry people online, but the game should have an incredibly bright future ahead of it. Future Palworld updates should go a long way in ironing out the game's technical issues, not to mention enhance the experience with new content that should hopefully keep players engaged with the game for the long haul. Palworld is showing no signs of slowing down, and it will be exciting to see where it goes from here.