The conversation aroundPalworldbeingPokemonwith guns has died down a little now, and we’re left simply with a conversation about Palworld. It’s close to 20 million players acrossXboxandPC, and we need todivorce Palworld from its initial gimmick. It has cultivated a huge playerbase, and the test now is not in how much like Pokemon it is or isn’t, but how good the game is on its own terms. Can it retain anything close to these numbers? How will the game keep itself fresh? Will the next set of Pals be more original…oh god I’m back talking about Pokemon, maybePalworld will never escape its clutches? And so on. But what that whole conversation has got me thinking about far more is Pokemon itself.
I’ve already written that, despite having no narrative and basic systems, Palworld has shown thatdoing something - anything - new with the Pokemon tropesis a popular route to take.I don’t think it will have The Pokemon Company quaking in its bootsgiventhe huge salessuccessScarlet & Violetenjoyed, despite being one of the buggiest releases to date, but the devs might also get the sense that 20 million people can’t be wrong. But if Pokemon is to change, what does that look like?
We tackled the Palworld design controversy when it first launched
Whenever people have asked for a ‘more mature’ Pokemon game, this has always been scoffed at. Like, what if Charizard did loads of cocaine, man, and then Ash robs a PokeBank with an Uzi! But this isconflating more mature with being gritty and edgy. While a lot of the video games most hailed as mature also have dark and violent storylines, such asThe Last of UsorGod of War, this is not the only way to grow and change.
For example, Scarlet & Violet has a side story that deals with a pet passing away. It’s soulful and very mature in its understanding that death is but a part of life, and doesn’t need guns or blood to elevate it. It’s just a story of substance with a lasting consequence happening to a character taken on a unique journey. Palworld might have sold well as ‘Pokemon with guns’, but that doesn’t mean Pokemon should become an FPS. It’s the ‘with’ that matters more than the ‘guns’. Pokemon has been mostly spinning its wheels on the same idea and format since Red & Blue, and the time has come for change. It doesn’t need to be Pokemon with guns, but it should be Pokemon with something.
Scarlet & Violet adds the open world, but it feels too much like this change in direction has been shoved into the existing formula, rather than considering the new possibilities that itcan offer. You’re still a kid starting out with a weak Pokemon from the same three types, still have to beat eight gym leaders in a fairly prescriptive order, still have a rival alongside you, and still have a rapid change from ‘la-dee-da I make my pets fight’ to ‘the world is ending and for some reason this child who just learned how Pokemon work is the only one to save us all’.
We know exactly how Pokemon games are going to end before they even start. Not just the vague notion that you as the player will win and there won’t be any casualties, we know every major plot point before we set off. As it moved into the open world, it did let us wander more freely, but still had levels in a set order and kept the restrictive flow of the more linear games. Rather than thinking ‘what does an open world Pokemon game look like?’, it instead put a regular Pokemon game inside a fairly empty open world. Building a diverse team was a little easier with room to wander, but the experience of the story - the story we already knew each beat of - did not change.
Pokemon is not going to learn from Palworld, and it shouldn’t. Pokemon fans are right to mock the idea that Pokemon needs to be more mature when its appeal lies in its cosiness and wholesome outlook. But it can be cosy with a wholesome outlook without telling the same story with the same character over and over again for close to three decades, and if Palworld finally teaches Pokemon that fans are ready for something just a little different, I’ll be grateful that Pokemon got there in the end.
Palworld
WHERE TO PLAY
Palworld has been described as Pokemon with guns and well, it’s hard to argue with that. The game is very similar in nature to the Pokemon formula, tasking you with catching and working with monsters called Pals. There are key differences, though. Palworld is rooted in multiplayer, oh, and, unlike Pokemon, its Pals have guns.
