Palworld is what happens when Pokemon meets guns

Someone went ahead and started making an open-world farming-adventure take on Pokémon… with guns… and poaching … and heck, you can even invite your friends along for multiplayer. Knowing Palworld‘s premise doesn’t make the trailer any less ridiculous, and it’ll spice up a few moments of your Monday afternoon.

The main takeaway from Steam: “You can make Pals fight, breed, help with farming, or work in factories. You can also sell them off or even slaughter them to eat! That, however, is forbidden by law.”

I couldn’t put my finger on why this game looked so familiar until I clicked through to the developer info. Palworld is being made by Pocketpair, the team behind the arguably just-as-bonkers Craftopia, another wild crafting game in Early Access. If nothing else, these creators know how to grab everyone’s attention with absurd game trailers. It’s a skill!

From flying around on mounts to breeding creatures to building farms and highly questionable production lines, there’s enough going on with Palworld mechanically that it’ll probably be interesting to play — to a point. It seems like another colorful buffet of cotton candy. At the moment, Pocketpair is aiming for a 2022 launch on Steam.

In a development note about the future of Craftopia (which is still moving forward with an expanded team), Pocketpair said Palworld is in the “prototype stage.”

Am I expecting anything more than a weekend distraction from this one? Right now, not really. I appreciate the laughs, though.