Palworld Creators Resist "Pokémon with Guns" Tag

What comes to mind when you think of Palworld? Unfortunately for its creators, the most common answer is likely "Pokémon with guns."

When the game first skyrocketed in popularity, that’s the description everyone online used—helping it gain traction thanks to the unexpected pairing of two contrasting ideas. Even we at IGN have used the phrase ourselves, just like so many others. It was simple and effective for newcomers to grasp what the game was about.

But according to Pocketpair communications director and publishing manager John ‘Bucky’ Buckley, "Pokémon with guns" was never the intended message. In fact, he notes that the team at Pocketpair doesn't exactly love the label. He discussed this during a talk at last month's Game Developers Conference, reflecting on Palworld's sudden rise back in 2021.

"We first introduced the game to the world in June 2021—quite a while ago. We released a trailer during an event called Indie Live Expo, an indie gaming showcase in Japan. The Japanese audience responded really positively. But quickly, Western media took notice, and as early as 2021, we were labeled as a 'certain franchise' with guns. That description has stuck with us ever since, despite our best attempts to shake it off."

After his presentation, I sat down with Buckley and asked him to elaborate. He explained that Pokémon wasn't really part of the original concept. Of course, many on the development team are fans of the series, and they recognized the similarities in creature collecting. But their main inspiration was actually ARK: Survival Evolved.

"A lot of us are huge ARK fans, and our earlier game, Craftopia, already incorporated some mechanics and ideas from ARK that we really liked," he said. "We wanted to expand on that. One thing about ARK is how it revolves around dinosaurs—some cute, some fierce. But we wanted to give our creatures more personality, more unique abilities, more individuality. So the original idea was: let’s make something like ARK, but with deeper automation and creatures that feel truly special. Then we released that first trailer, and suddenly the ‘Pokémon with guns’ label appeared. Were we thrilled? Not really, but that’s just how it went."

I asked Buckley if he believed the "Pokémon with guns" comparison helped fuel Palworld’s massive success—and he admitted it played a role.

"Yeah, that was definitely a big factor," he said. "Dave [Oshry] from New Blood [Interactive, the publisher behind Dusk, Fallen Aces, and others] even reached out because he’d trademarked the domain 'Pokemonwithguns.com' and things like that. All that buzz definitely added to the momentum, and honestly, it makes sense.

"Even now in 2025, if people still want to call it that, it's fine. What bothers us a bit is when people genuinely believe that’s all the game is. But once you actually play it, you realize it’s nothing like that. So if someone wants to call it that after playing, no problem—we just hope they give it a chance first."

Buckley also doesn’t see Pokémon as a direct competitor in the market. "I don’t think the player bases overlap that much," he explained, again pointing to ARK as a closer comparison. But even then, he doesn’t feel Palworld is really competing with any one game—not even Helldivers 2, which he says a "significant number" of Palworld players also picked up at launch.

"I’ve gotten into trouble before for going on about the ‘console wars,’ but I think competition in gaming is often manufactured—almost like a meta-marketing strategy. I’m not sure there’s really that much competition anymore. With so many games available, how can you just compete with one or two? It doesn’t really make sense. Our biggest challenge is timing—more than anything else."

So if "Pokémon with guns" is off the table, what tagline would Buckley have preferred to go viral?

"I probably would have pitched it as, ‘Palworld: It’s Kind of Like ARK Meets Factorio and Happy Tree Friends’ or something like that. That’s how I’d put it."

I pointed out that it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue—and he agreed.

Buckley and I also discussed the potential for Palworld coming to the Nintendo Switch 2, whether Pocketpair might ever be acquired, and more in our full conversation. You can read the complete interview right here.