Pokémon-with-guns survival game Palworld shows off more gameplay

A new look at Palworld, the colorful, open-world survival crafting game from Craftopia developer Pocketpair Games, shows off its colorful cartoonish world, it’s Pokémonlike creatures called Pals, and a whole lot of violence that will probably make you think, “It is incredibly weird to see Pokémon on the business end of a shotgun.”

Palworld’s newest gameplay highlights don’t offer too much new that we haven’t seen in previous trailers. We see a player character capturing a not-Wooloo with a not-Pokéball; the construction of a high-tech Pal prison; a deerlike creature brutally sniped in the head with a bow and arrow; a pack of Relaxaurus (definitely not a Goodra-Snorlax hybrid); and what appears to be a boss, Anubis (definitely not Lucario), getting shotgun-blasted in the torso. So, yeah, while Palworld is pitched as a “happy easy-going lifestyle while farming [and] building” game, it also has its share of brutal combat.

Pocketpair Games says Palworld is still in development, and there’s no update on when the Windows PC game will arrive other than its 2022 window on Steam. Given its ambitions — there’s also Pal breeding, dungeon exploration, factory automation, multiplayer, and “crime” — it wouldn’t be surprising to see Palworld become a 2023 game.