Pocketpair has just about given up trying to convince skeptics that it didn’t use generative AI, he also said.
Palworld, the survival game often referred to as « Pokémon with guns »—sometimes affectionately, sometimes derisively—drew mixed reactions from critics when it first launched in January 2024.
We called it a « somewhat edgy, competent survival game with a core concept just dumb enough to be streamable » when it was released, while other players noted its similarities to Nintendo’s popular monster-catching RPG. Still, it was an overnight success, peaking at more than two million users on Steam.
At a GDC 2025 talk on Monday, Pocketpair global community manager John Buckley said that it was « super popular to hate Palworld » after the massive launch because it was an « impressions printing machine. »
Buckley also pushed back against some of the accusations leveled at Palworld in the immediate aftermath of its release, including claims that it had been produced using generative AI.
