When you think of Palworld, the phrase "Pokemon with guns" might immediately come to mind. This shorthand became popular when the game first gained traction, likely boosting its visibility due to the unique juxtaposition of these two concepts. Even we at IGN have used this phrase, as have many others. It provided a quick and easy way for newcomers to grasp the game's concept.
However, according to Pocketpair's communications director and publishing manager, John 'Bucky' Buckley, the "Pokemon with guns" label was never the intended takeaway. In fact, Pocketpair doesn't particularly love this moniker. Buckley shared these sentiments during a talk at the Game Developers Conference last month, reflecting on Palworld's rise to fame in 2021.
“We revealed the game to the world in June of 2021, so quite a few years ago. We posted a trailer at what's called Indie Live Expo, which is an indie gaming event in Japan. We showed this off to the Japanese audience initially, and we had a really, really good reception. But very quickly, Western media got eyes on this little game, and we were very quickly branded, as early as 2021, as a ‘certain franchise’ plus guns. This would be something that has stuck with us to this very day, despite our best efforts to shake that off,” Buckley explained.
In a follow-up interview, Buckley elaborated that Pokemon was never part of the original pitch. While the development team includes Pokemon fans who recognized the similarities in monster-collecting, their aim was to create a game more akin to ARK: Survival Evolved.
“A lot of us are huge ARK people, and our previous game, Craftopia, kind of has some stuff in it that we really loved from ARK and some ideas from ARK,” Buckley said. “So we wanted to just take that and make it bigger. And one of the things about ARK is that everything’s about the dinosaurs. Some are cute, some are cool. But we wanted to give them more personality, more abilities, more uniqueness. So that was the pitch. The pitch was, let's make something like ARK, but a lot heavier on the automation and each creature's like its own very special thing. And then we show that first trailer, and then this title kind of came out. And no, we weren't super happy about it, but it is what it is.”
Buckley acknowledged that the "Pokemon with guns" label did contribute to Palworld's success. “Yeah, I mean, that was big,” he said. “That was definitely a big thing. Dave [Oshry] from New Blood [Interactive, publisher of Dusk, Fallen Aces, and others] messaged us because he trademarked the website, ‘Pokemonwithguns.com’ and stuff. All this kind of stuff happened, and I'm sure that fueled that fire, which is fair enough.
"But still today, in 2025, if people want to say [‘Pokemon with guns’], that's fine. But the thing that upsets us, I guess, a little bit, is the people who firmly believe that's what the game actually is. But it's not even remotely like that to play the game. So if you want to say that after playing, that's fine, but we'd rather everyone give it a bit of a chance first.”
Buckley also believes that Pokemon isn't a significant competitor to Palworld. “I don’t think the audiences cross over that much,” he said, emphasizing that ARK is a more apt comparison. He further stated that Palworld doesn't directly compete with other games, even popular titles like Helldivers 2, which a "very significant" portion of Palworld players also purchased upon release.
“I've gotten in trouble for ranting about the ‘console wars’ before, but I think the competition in games is kind of manufactured for the sake of it,” Buckley noted. “Almost like a meta-marketing kind of strategy. I don't really think there is competition in games. I mean, there's so many games right now. How can you be in competition with one or two? It doesn't really make sense anymore. We're just always in competition with the timing [of releases] more than anything, I think.”
If Buckley could choose a different viral tagline for Palworld, he suggested, “Palworld: It's Kind of Like ARK if ARK Met Factorio and Happy Tree Friends” or something along those lines. He admits, however, that it doesn't quite have the same catchy ring to it.
Buckley and I also spoke about the possibility of Palworld coming to the Nintendo Switch 2, whether Pocketpair would ever be acquired, and much more in our interview. You can read the full discussion right here.
