Palworld studio not big on the “Pokemon with guns” label

Although many have said that Palworld is essentially “Pokemon with guns”, developer Pocketpair isn’t a fan of that label.

Communications director and publishing manager John ‘Bucky’ Buckley was speaking about the title at the Game Developers Conference last month. Buckley indicated that western media pushed the moniker, and it’s “something that has stuck with us to this very day, despite our best efforts to shake that off.”

Buckley stated:

“We revealed the game to the world in June of 2021, so quite a few years ago. We posted a trailer at what’s called Indie Live Expo, which is an indie gaming event in Japan. We showed this off to the Japanese audience initially, we had a really, really good reception. But very quickly, western media got eyes on this little game, and we were very quickly branded, as early as 2021, as a ‘certain franchise’ plus guns. This would be something that has stuck with us to this very day, despite our best efforts to shake that off.”

IGN also spoke with Buckley after the event, who said that Pokemon wasn’t exactly a part of the original pitch. Pocketpair does have Pokemon fans among their ranks, but apparently the team was more so looking at Ark: Survival Evolved for inspiration instead.

Buckley did also admit that some calling Palworld “Pokemon with guns” helped the game. Pocketpair isn’t taking issue with those who call it that, but the bigger problem “is the people who firmly believe that’s what the game actually is”.

Buckley noted:

“Yeah, I mean, that was big. That was definitely a big thing. Dave [Oshry] from New Blood [Interactive, publisher of Dusk, Fallen Aces, and others] messaged us because he trademarked the website, ‘Pokemonwithguns.com’ and stuff. All this kind of stuff happened, and I’m sure that fueled that fire, which is fair enough. But still today, 2025, if people want to say [“Pokemon with guns”], that’s fine. But the thing that upsets us, I guess, a little bit, is the people who firmly believe that’s what the game actually is. But it’s not even remotely like that to play the game. So if you want to say that after playing, that’s fine, but we’d rather everyone give it a bit of a chance first.”

Palworld isn’t on a Nintendo platform, but perhaps that could change in the future. The company is interested in a potential Switch 2 version despite an ongoing lawsuit with The Pokemon Company and Nintendo.