Palworld devs receive death threats following plagiarism accusations

Pocketpair studios shared on social media that their devs and artists had received “slanderous comments” from Pokemon fans who made viral several comparisons with the Nintendo franchise.

Palworld has taken the world by storm, and even if it’s still on Early Access, it has become the third most-played game on Steam. But despite its success, Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe has shared on X that the studio was being bombarded with “death threats” and other “slanderous comments” against their artists.

These statements come after a weekend where Palworld was made viral by outraged Pokemon fans who posted all the similarities between Pocketpair’s new survival game and the Pokemon franchise.

I went through the entire 111 list of Pals in Palworld to see what seems like a Pokémon rip off compared to not, because I’ve seen a lot of people talk about it but no full comprehensive list. Here’s what I found (it’s a lot) 🧵 pic.twitter.com/EPSpBvC9hD

— Cecilia Fae 🍂 (@CeciliaFae) January 21, 2024

“I have received a variety of opinions regarding Palworld, but all productions related to Palworld are supervised by multiple people, including myself, and I am responsible for the production. I would appreciate it if you would refrain from slandering the artists involved in Palworld,” said Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe.

Speaking with Automation, Mizobe also stated that Palworld had cleared legal reviews and that Nintendo wasn’t taking any specific action against them. “We take our games very seriously, and we have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies,” he said. 

Frantically working through all my DMs and emails!
I promise! 😓

…However, you'll excuse me if I skip over the death threats, threats to the company and massively outlandish claims…

If you're capable of writing like an actual human being though, I'll reply asap! 🙇‍♀️

— Bucky | Palworld & Craftopia (@Bucky_cm) January 21, 2024

Pocketpair has even stated that they were inspired by Ark: Survival Evolved and Rust, and highlighted that its game mechanics are focused more on survival than on the creature-collecting aspect of its story. Devs also explicitly said that the Dragon Quest series was the main inspiration for its creature designs, instead of Pokemon.

“To be honest, I didn’t know the internet was saying it was Pokemon with guns. This is not a popular meme in Japan. Fortunately, it could be a lucky thing to have the meme of Pokemon with guns, but we totally didn’t intend it. Pocketpair tried to make the game totally different from Pokemon,” said Mizobe in an interview with TheGamer in 2021.

If you want to know more about Palworld, you can check if Pocketpair’s survival will be coming to Nintendo Switch and how to find and catch Lunaris while traveling the archipelago.