Watch On
Since its launch, I’ve believed Palworld’s creature management systems would’ve made for a more interesting game if they weren’t buried under its preoccupation with OSHA violations. It seems I’m not the only one who thought developer Pocketpair was leaving that potential untapped, because yesterday the studio announced Palfarm, a farming sim spinoff in the Palworld setting.
“One thing that many players requested was a more relaxing and cozy adventure, and after thinking it over for a few months the idea of Palfarm was born,” Pocketpair said in its Steam news post announcing the spinoff. “Developed by a new team, Palfarm aims to show a more peaceful and cozy side of Palworld.”
Judging from the Palfarm reveal trailer embedded above, Palfarm is giving Pals the Harvest Moon treatment, incorporating creature collection into farm management and idyllic small town life. There are Pals watering crops. There are Pals sowing seeds and selling flowers.
There are also Pals revving chainsaws for harvesting lumber. Coziness comes in all kinds of forms.
“The island is home to many unique Pals and residents,” Pocketpair says in the Palfarm Steam listing. “Through daily conversations, working together, or giving gifts from time to time, you can gradually deepen your relationships with both the Pals and the people of the island.”
Before the end of the reveal trailer, however, we’re given reason to doubt how cozy this whole thing is when Palworld’s Black Marketeer appears and invites the player to a round of Russian Roulette before holding a revolver to his temple. And you don’t have to scroll very far down the Steam page before it mentions that “combat is a form of harvesting in its own way” and shows a gif of a Tanzee unloading its trademark assault rifle into another Pal.
Considering it made them approximately infinite money with Palworld’s launch, I guess I can’t fault Pocketpair for leaning once again on shock marketing.
That said, while I’m thrilled by the implication that Pals have sufficient civic frameworks to accommodate either faith-based matrimony or common law marriage, the trailer’s brief glimpse of a Pal officiating a wedding takes on a certain haunting weight when the Steam description says “it’s even possible for your bond with a Pal or resident to grow into a special relationship.”
It seems like that Palworld dating sim was less of an accursed one-off joke and more of a dire omen. And while Nintendo’s ongoing Palworld patent lawsuit continues to take new, unsettling turns, it’s safe to assume that “special relationships” is a feature that Palfarm and Pokémon’s own upcoming creature-collecting cozy life sim, Pokopia, won’t share.
Probably for the best.
Palworld: Palfarm doesn’t have a release date, but you can wishlist it on Steam now.
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