Pal World, a Pokémon parody survival game that sold 4 million copies in just a few days, is under scrutiny by Internet detectives who believe it has gone beyond parody and into the realm of piracy.

Takuro Mizobe, head of Pocket Pair, the developer of Pal World, said today on X that "slander" is being made about Pal World's artists. Mizobe also told Automaton recently that Pocket Pair "has no intention of infringing on the intellectual property of other companies."

Unproven allegations have circulated that some of Pal World's creature models were not only inspired by Pokémon, but were created by directly copying and editing 3D models pulled from Pokémon games.

The criticism emanates from an X user named byofrog, who says it is motivated by disgust at "how much Palworld glorifies animal abuse" (the game includes various ways to abuse creatures). byofrog in a series of posts, pointing out the similarities between Palworld and the torn 3D mesh of the Pokémon game.

"Palworld's meshes are not identical node by node, but they are really close," wrote byofrog, comparing one of Palworld's models to a Cinderella model ripped from "Pokemon Sword and Shield."

Byofrog says he has "very little" 3D modeling experience, and others are less convinced that the Pokémon mesh was copied directly. In response to one comparison, X user Hexidimentional stated, "It is my opinion, having a background in 3D modeling, that the terrain in Pal World is not only different, but superior."

Byofrog's most shared comparison (embedded above) superimposes a Pokémon recantrol model and a parody version of Pal World, showing that the two creatures share almost identical proportions.

"It is practically impossible to "accidentally" create a complex model mesh with such close to exact proportions," wrote former Blizzard designer Eric Covington (not a 3D artist) to X in a highly shared tweet." To repeat that improbability across the entire enrollment... It doesn't pass the sniff test."

.

An anonymous video game character artist told VGC that while the comparison shows a different model, the Pal World model may have been "built on top of the Pokémon model" and resisted claiming it as an original work.

In a recent blog post (machine translated from Japanese), Mizobe admitted that he was out of his depth when the Palworld models and animations were first created. Pocket Pair was supposed to create 100 monsters for the game, but he knew nothing about rigging for animation and his file management was "a mess." According to Mizobe, however, everything changed when Pocket Pair brought in a veteran animator, who pointed out their mistakes and set up a "mass production system."

In the X post referenced earlier (also machine translated from Japanese), Mizobe described unspecified comments directed at Pal World artists as "slander" and said they had received death threats.

"All productions associated with Palworld are overseen by several people, including myself, and I am in charge of the productions," he added.

Mizobe may also be referring to the claim that the art in Palworld is assisted by generative AI, but there is no direct evidence to support this.

The similarities between The Pals and Pokémon may ultimately be more controversial among gamers than lawyers. Notoriously litigious Nintendo has so far made no moves against Pal World, and attorney Brandon Huffman of Odin Law and Media, which specializes in video games, told Bloomberg that the pocket pair will not have to worry. Last week we described Pulse as a "surreal gallery of familiar eyes, limbs, and silhouettes" that are "pieced together Frankenstein-style" from Pokémon pieces to create Palworld's distinctive look.

Had it been a normal success, the origins of Palworld's 3D models might not have come under so much scrutiny, but Palworld is an absolute phenomenon, surpassing Counter-Strike 2 as the most played game on Steam today. While it certainly only borrowed CS2's throne, this is an incredible feat, and a movement is beginning to make sense of it. Is it a sad victory over a lack of originality and tastelessness, or is it a heroic triumph of a scrappy team over noisy internet critics and tacky Pokémon fans? [Personally, I think it's something more mundane, further proof that PC gamers have zero defense against the lure of any new early access survival game.