Earlier in September, Nintendo revealed that Pokemon is getting a cozy game, Pokemon Pokopia. Apparently the developers of Palworld had similar ideas, because Pocketpair has now unveiled a spin-off cozy game of its own called Palworld: Palfarm.
Much like Pokemon Pokopia, Palfarm lets players gather pals to help them live a quiet life as a farmer while handling the harvest, the cooking, and even the business of selling the food. The chosen pals also lend their special abilities to the player to make things easier on the farm.
However, it does appear that this game has a dark side. Pocketpair has confirmed that some pals will attack the communities you create in Palfarm. The trailer also has an unnerving sequence of a gunshop owner playing with a weapon that’s much darker than the Pokemon games are willing to go.
Palworld: Palfarm is available to wish list on Steam, but it hasn’t been confirmed for any of the consoles yet. The game’s release date is currently unannounced.
In the interim, Nintendo has stepped up its legal battle against Pocketpair over Palworld’s similarities to Pokemon. Pocketpair has removed some of the features that Nintendo objected to, but now the latter has cited a patent that “covers the fundamental gameplay mechanic of summoning a character and letting it fight another” in a video game.
As part of the same case, Nintendo recently argued that mods don’t count as either games or “prior art.” While there’s no settlement in sight between the two sides, Pocketpair is moving forward with an ambitious slate of updates for Palworld that will arrive in 2026.
