All this weekend, Palworld flooded social media conversations, content on streaming sites, comments in the gaming community… come on, it became an instant sensation for many, while others still don’t know what exactly it is, although given the context, many guessed correctly , we are talking about a game. But of course, their investigation only goes so far.

So let’s start from the beginning, that is, answering the question with which this article begins, what is Palworld? And as I already specified at the end of the previous paragraph, we are really talking about a game, a title developed and distributed by Pocketpair and that It went on sale last Friday, January 19 for PC (in Steam Early Access) and Xbox. Its basic description on Steam is as follows: «This is a huge and original multiplayer open world survival game in which you will have to take control of mysterious creatures called Pals, able to fight, build, farm and work in factories.«. Its price is 28.99 euros, but as an introductory offer it currently has a 10% discount, so it can be purchased for 26.09 euros.

Palworld’s numbers in its first weekend of life were simply spectacular. Pocketpair communicated, via Twitterthat exceeded five million units sold, and while it may seem like an exaggeration, Steam has peaked at 1,582,482 concurrent players, plus it has an aggregate of very positive reviews on Valve’s store. And if we’re talking about streaming, it hasn’t stopped growing in streamers and viewership these days, at the time of publishing it’s already over 380,000 viewers, just behind League of Legends and Just Chatting and IRL.

And why is it proving so successful? Of course, there are many reasons, but we can highlight them Palworld is responding to the demand for badass Pokemon, and preferably with weapons. Of course, this did not go unnoticed by the community of Pokémon fans and fans, who have already publicly condemned the more than clear inspiration of this new game in the Nintendo franchise. Something that, on the other hand, is also not particularly new, as we have already seen similar “inspirations” in the past with titles such as the controversial Temtem.

However, Is Palworld a pokemon clone? The truth is, no. Yes, we can clearly see the “inspiration” in many aspects, such as the mysterious creatures, but we also find mechanisms that are not present in Nintendo titles that make the premise interesting. For example, even without leaving a description of your file on Steam, the description «work in factories» It shows us mechanics that, although obviously not as developed, we can identify with the mechanics of titles like Factorio.

It is still too early to predict the growth and development of Palworld in the future, but both the numbers it has collected in these early days and above all the very positive reviews it is achieving even though it is in early access, point out that it has room to grow and become a reference in this sector (it already is in its genre). Of course, after this initial boom, there are many factors that will determine whether its success will consolidate over time, or whether it will eventually become the flower of the day.