Palworld hits 3 million copies sold in 40 hours as it's met with accusations of plagiarism

"Pokemon with guns" game Palworld is quickly racking up sales, though as the game shoots up in popularity, it has been met with accusations of plagiarism.

Late last night, the official Palworld Twitter account shared that the new creature collector has hit three million copies sold in the 40 hours since it was released, an obviously impressive figure, especially when you consider it is available on Game Pass. That's also up from the one million copies sold in just the first eight hours on sale, so clearly the concept of giving a Pokemon a gun is a popular one. It's proving popular on Steam too, as it's now the storefront's sixth highest played game according to concurrent players of all time, beating out games like Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3.

That popularity isn't coming without some controversy though, as the game's release has also been met with accusations of plagiarism. If you just took a quick glance at the game it'd be quite easy to say that Palworld is borrowing from Pokemon, given the creature collecting element where you throw balls at said creatures to capture them. For the most part that generally seems to be where the gameplay similarities end, as it is more of a survival game than it is an RPG like Pokemon, but numerous people online have pointed out how similar some of the creature designs are.

One user shared a comparison between Palworld and Pokemon creature designs, and yeah, some of the designs are strikingly similar, right down to the colour palette usage. It's impossible to prove if developer Pocketpair did directly copy any designs, though you can't exactly blame anyone for noting the similarities. Pocketpair's previous game, Craftopia, also clearly took inspiration from another Nintendo game, Breath of the Wild, and its upcoming title Never Grave certainly looks like a game that features a particular hollowed knight.

If you want to see for yourself if Palworld has copied Pokemon or not, it's available now on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, and you can play it through Game Pass.