Initially revealed in 2021, the world patiently awaited the next big reveal for the game, which was quickly dubbed “Pokemon with Guns”: Palworld. It’s a bit more accurate to call it “Rust with Pokemon” because it focuses much more on building and survival than flat-out creature catching and shooting. Though the game is in early access with maybe 1/4th of the budget, Palworld still manages to impress even in its current state, with plenty of content and creatures to play around with.

Palworld is a 2024 monster-taming and survival game developed and published by Pocket Pair and is currently available on PC and Xbox platforms.

Editor’s Note: Due to Palworld having a currently limited narrative, no spoilers will be present in this review.

Battle and build with creatures big and small in Palworld.

Since its reveal in 2021, Palworld become a near-overnight sensation, with many fans enjoying the obvious parody between the title and the much darker, less talked-about elements of kid-friendly Pokemon. The title was released into early access three years later with a second wind of overnight successes, selling millions of copies in days. In addition to massive sales, the title reached all-time peaks on Steam and social media platforms covering the game. Following its successes, Pocket Pair has announced that they expect the game to be in early access until 2025, at least before reaching a proper release.

Palworld features online components such as co-op with PVP and raids coming in the future.

THE GOOD: As I mentioned, this will be an almost strictly gameplay and current state of product-based review. I expect this to change as the game gets closer to full release. You have to pick up the pieces of the story with visual aids and context clues sprinkled throughout as you travel the world and speak to NPCs. That said, I can only imagine how bonkers the story will be as Pocket Pair figures everything out upon full release.

When you start your playthrough, you must pick up on a few things the second the game loads. Outside of the world server and character creation, you’ll get used to resource gathering and early building mechanics before you begin capturing your first handful of Pals. Your character and Pal levels will increase as you accomplish specific tasks, such as building necessary equipment for yourself alongside the base itself. Increasing your character level improves your stats for survival and victory and gives you technology points to advance your base and the quality of life of yourself and your Pals. The first boss is immediately available to challenge if you’d like, but it’s at level 13, and you’ll probably want Pals and yourself to be at an even higher level than that. Your Pals can learn new attacks through leveling up but won’t evolve.

One of the main ways to get more powerful Pals outside of exploring the world is by finding eggs to hatch with a Pal incubator or testing some breeding with different Pals, which is probably the fastest way to get powerful Pals early. You can also acquire Mount Pals, making traveling the world map much more manageable. There are also Legendary Pals with high stats to obtain. Beyond the Pals, you have the weaponry to equip, such as axes, clubs, and guns. Weapons can deal massive damage to the player’s enemies and can even rival Pal damage. You’ll want to unlock weapons as soon as possible, as the more challenging enemies are all over the place in the early game.

Build a fortress of survival for you and your Pals.

THE BAD: There’s no real narrative in the early access version of the game, so anyone looking for a story won’t find it by traditional means. You can get some of the world-building by talking to NPC, who helps sort things out for you, but it still feels very far and few between as the game is currently. Expect a ton of glitches regardless of whether you are playing natively on PC and Xbox or through the cloud. All the classics are here, from falling through the map to the game freezing and characters getting stuck. Palworld is an early-access game, so in that regard, the glitches can be forgiven in its current state. I only encountered them so often, which is more than I can say for many AAA games released the last year.

Gear up yourself and your Pals to defend your base or face bosses.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Palworld, even in early access, is already a pretty impressive and addictive product. There are a ton of creatures to collect and some solid activity to get sunk into between battling bosses, building your base, and crafting crazy shit for your world. Online play is also available to build a fortress and conquer the world of Pals with your friends. I’m not sure how the final game, which will be released sometime in 2025, will stack up to what we have now, but at least as far as the game itself is concerned, there aren’t any warning signs just yet. A roadmap is available for you to look into the game’s future development if you aren’t quite interested just yet.