Palworld developers aren't fans of the moniker "Pokémon with guns"

"This would be something that has stuck with us to this very day, despite our best efforts to shake that off."

Ever since Palworld was first shown off, people have been calling it "Pokémon with guns", and for pretty obvious reasons. But Palworld is quite a bit more than that, and for that reason, Pocketpair has tried to shake off the description, but without success. This is what communications director and publishing manager John "Bucky" Buckley tells IGN in an interview:

"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."

However, Buckley admits that the nickname has contributed to Palworld's huge success and he says it's still OK for people to use it, even if, as he states, they don't think it's entirely accurate. He therefore wishes people would get their own idea by trying it out and realising that the similarities aren't that many.