{"id":451536,"date":"2024-01-18T17:30:06","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T23:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/?p=451536"},"modified":"2024-01-19T12:55:32","modified_gmt":"2024-01-19T18:55:32","slug":"palworld-early-access-impressions-pc-steam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/palworld-early-access-impressions-pc-steam\/","title":{"rendered":"Palworld mixes monster catching, guns, and survival, and it mostly works"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There are a few games that seem to crop up at random trailer-filled showcases, promising something that looks so strange it&#8217;s nigh-unbelievable. Sometimes, the trailers turn out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/the-day-before-studio-announces-closure-less-than-a-week-after-launch\/\">a little too good to be true<\/a>. <em>Palworld<\/em>, somehow, is not one of those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pocketpair&#8217;s <em>Palworld <\/em>is about living on an island with a variety of mysterious, fantastical creatures called Pals. What you do from there is your choice; train them, use them to fight the evil poaching syndicate, or build an exploitative industry around them. Even sell or eat them, it&#8217;s really your call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Palworld - Release Date Announcement Trailer\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4Jn9LQslOjA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>To call this &#8220;<em>Pok\u00e9mon <\/em>with guns&#8221; is fairly accurate, sure. <em>Palworld <\/em>wears its inspirations on its sleeves. It&#8217;s also a bit more, and a bit stranger, than that concept would imply. So we here at Destructoid tasked two of our bravest adventurers, Eric and Zoey, with venturing deep into the Early Access build of <em>Palworld <\/em>to learn more. They are different people now than they were before, but they also know a fair amount about <em>Palworld<\/em>. Here are their takeaways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-zoey-handley-more-like-a-hostile-acquaintance\">Zoey Handley: More like a hostile acquaintance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Palworld<\/em> is not my pal. I don\u2019t mean to say that I think the game is of poor quality or I didn\u2019t enjoy it. What I have played, I\u2019ve certainly enjoyed. <em>Palworld <\/em>is less <em>Pok\u00e9mon <\/em>with guns and more <em>Ark: Survival Evolved<\/em> with <em>Pok\u00e9mon<\/em>. It\u2019s a survival crafting game, and it succeeds in the way it manages to make hours disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it\u2019s not my pal because it won\u2019t let me play it. Every hour or so, <em>Palworld <\/em>hard crashes my computer. Straight up. Everything stops, I see a black screen, and I have to turn my PC back on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I hate flashing my credentials, but I worked in I.T. for nine years. Troubleshooting a video game is a lot easier than remotely fixing a lawyer\u2019s proprietary software. But <em>Palworld <\/em>didn\u2019t give me a lot to go on. It doesn\u2019t blue screen my PC. It just shuts it down entirely. There\u2019s no minidump log, and the Windows event viewer doesn\u2019t give a stop error. It just says, \u201cThe system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first.\u201d I have very little data to figure out what\u2019s going wrong. It\u2019s like <em>Palworld <\/em>broke into my apartment and held down the power button on my PC until it did a hard shutdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Screen_Palworld01cropped.jpg?resize=640%2C360\" alt=\"Palworld with a spear\" class=\"wp-image-451577\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Screenshot by Destructoid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s like clockwork. Everything works fine, and then it\u2019s all over. <em>Palworld <\/em>at least saves often, so each time I re-entered the game, I didn\u2019t have to repeat too much. I considered just playing through the crashes like I did when <em>Fallout: New Vegas<\/em> was new, but I\u2019m concerned that too many hardware crashes would run the risk of corrupting portions of my hard drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m, therefore, hesitant to play any more of <em>Palworld <\/em>until there\u2019s a patch for the game or a driver update for my GPU. That\u2019s a shame because I started up the game just to check on something, and I really wanted to start playing. And then, on the main splash screen I noticed the message \u201c<em>Palworld <\/em>is in Early Access. You may encounter bugs or crashes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That I certainly did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I did enjoy the nearly three hours I played. As far as survival crafting games, it feels a bit simple. There is a nice twist of assigning captured Pals to your base to both hold the fort and take care of some of the chores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yep, it sure seems promising. I just wish I could play it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"h-eric-van-allen-oops-i-built-a-factory\">Eric Van Allen: Oops, I built a factory<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>At some point, midway through crafting an Assault Rifle upgrade for my Grass-Type Pal Tanzee, I had to pause and reflect on what I had done. I was about to put a military rifle in the hands of a somewhat-sentient animal, a seemingly innocent and adorable creature, hoping it spraying bullets in a general direction would be the ace-in-the-hole I needed against a particularly tough boss trainer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I considered it, decided it was cool, and went back to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Palworld_TanzeeARBuild_011824.jpg?resize=640%2C360\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-451543\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Screenshot by Destructoid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s been my takeaway from <em>Palworld <\/em>so far: a game full of surprises. Granted, I had only followed it through novelty up to this point. It was the game that would show up at an SGF or Game Awards or similar stream, and I&#8217;d remark it was the &#8220;<em>Pok\u00e9mon <\/em>with guns game,&#8221; and move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet part of me wanted to see if this would be a <em>Days Before<\/em>-esque disaster waiting to happen. Kudos to Pocketpair, this absolutely isn&#8217;t. In fact, it&#8217;s maybe one of the year&#8217;s early surprises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While <em>Palworld <\/em>has you catching monsters, it&#8217;s not <em>just <\/em>about training and battling like its Game Freak-developed inspiration. And to be clear, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s a reach; everything about <em>Palworld <\/em>has a legally-distinct approximation vibe, down to the clever names, elemental typing, and even visual designs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So after an hour or so of running around, catching monsters and seeing the open world expand, I figured that was the draw. There&#8217;s not really a funnier moment in gaming, in recent memory, than realizing that to catch my first Pal, I&#8217;d have to beat them up with my own fists to weaken and capture it. A novel appeal, one that&#8217;d make for some funny videos on socials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it was once I started building out my base back home that I saw the real draw. Or maybe, at least, the draw for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Palworld_Stonefarm_011824.jpg?resize=640%2C360\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-451542\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Screenshot by Destructoid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>While every Pal can be taken into combat and used as a sidekick, alongside your own create-a-character&#8217;s martial capabilities, they can also be put to work back at your base. And as I dove deeper into the Work Suitability specialties that dictated each Pals&#8217; talents, and how those could automate production, I feel deep down the rabbit hole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My sole focus was now building a humming, fine-tuned factory for producing goods and advancing technology. Like a Sid Meiers <em>Civ <\/em>gunning for the Science Victory, I was storming through the tech tree, building up a machine of Pal labor to get me there. Once-natural resources, like Stone and Wood, became hubs I could set adorable Cattivas to work on, accruing my precious resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I sought out Pals not for their combat prowess, but for what they could do for my base: transport goods, craft items, seed fields, and water the crops. As my workshops and buildings expanded, I constructed a small fort, and soon had to defend it against invaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Palworld_RushoarBath_011824.jpg?resize=640%2C360\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-451541\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Screenshot by Destructoid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>What&#8217;s impressive to me is that <em>Palworld <\/em>is pretty openly following in design footsteps. As much as there&#8217;s <em>Pok\u00e9mon<\/em>, especially <em>Legends: Arceus<\/em>, in this game, there&#8217;s also <em>Breath of the Wild <\/em>and <em>Rust<\/em>, <em>Valheim <\/em>and <em>Monster Hunter<\/em>. And like a hearty stew, everything simmers right until it blends together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m hesitant to pin any full appraisals to the game yet, as I&#8217;ve mostly wiled away the hours building a humming, ethically questionable hub of production and economy. It seems like there are bosses to conquer in some manner of story, and probably some formidable Pals to fight and win over. I&#8217;m just pleasantly surprised that <em>Palworld <\/em>not only works, but works so well. It&#8217;s genuinely enjoyable, even for me, someone who takes a while to warm up to the survival genre. As a <em>Dyson Sphere Program <\/em>and <em>Satisfactory <\/em>fan, the engaging automation certainly helps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ll continue to follow <em>Palworld <\/em>as it develops throughout Early Access. But right now, Pocketpair has managed to both deliver on its surreal vision, and still create something that feels like more than just a novel &#8220;what-if&#8221; mash-up of ideas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Knockoff pocket monsters meets open-world survival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":808,"featured_media":451553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"article_type":"","ub_ctt_via":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"[]","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[22566],"tags":[22690],"internal-label":[24256,22872,24340,24255],"invoiceable_action":[23730],"article_type":[23115],"coauthors":[{"id":808,"display_name":"Eric Van Allen","user_nicename":"ericvanallen"},{"id":17,"display_name":"Zoey Handley","user_nicename":"adzuken"}],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Palworld_Lead_011824.jpg?fit=1200%2C675","author_info":{"display_name":"Eric Van Allen","author_link":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/author\/ericvanallen\/"},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Palworld_Lead_011824.jpg?fit=1200%2C675","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/808"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451536"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451667,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451536\/revisions\/451667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451536"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=451536"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=451536"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=451536"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=451536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}