Last week, developer Pocketpair released Palworld, a monster-taming survival crafting game that quickly scored over 4 million downloads in three days, due in part to their monsters’ similarity to Pokemon.

In fact, many of Palworlds‘ “Pals” look so similar to existing Pokemon that they were accused of plagiarism by many fans online. Extensive threads were posted to social media comparing monsters from both franchises. The comparisons started with just similar design elements, but have grown to accusations that Pocketpair modified models lifted directly from Pokemon games for some of the Pals.

2. This one, also posted a lot on Twitter. Exact same face, same teeth placement, white and yellow eyes, identical pic.twitter.com/asmlDfHlTL

— Cecilia Fae 🍂 (@CeciliaFae) January 21, 2024

30. Cobalion, one of the most blatant ones pic.twitter.com/D8AzTcSn8K

— Cecilia Fae 🍂 (@CeciliaFae) January 21, 2024

https://twitter.com/covingtown/status/1749462735291859423

These comparisons and accusations of course did not go unnoticed by the developers of Palworld. Firstly, the game’s director Takuro Mizobe posted a response to the allegations on his own personal social media account. His response (translated from Japanese bv VGC), claims that their artists are being subjected to “abuse and defamatory comments”, asked that these comments be stopped.

“We are currently receiving abusive and defamatory comments against our artists, in addition to tweets that appear to be death threats. While we have received various opinions about Palworld, it is important to note that the supervision of all materials related to Palworld is conducted by a team, including myself. I bear the responsibility for the produced materials. I would appreciate it if these comments towards artists involved in Palworld would cease.”

In an interview with media outlet Automation, Mizobe asserted that they had “no intention” of “infringing copyright” on the intellectual property of other companies. He also claimed that Palworld had “cleared legal reviews” and that other companies had not taken action against them so far.  Mizobe also described Pokemon as being a “overwhelming leader of the monster collection/raising genre”, and that he saw Palworld as being a very different kind of game from this “great predecessor”.

At the time of this writing, there has been no corresponding response from the Pokemon Company relating to these allegations. Stay tuned for more updates as they come.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.