I thought Palworld was going to be a wholesome creature-collecting adventure.

It is not.

Palworld is what happens when survival mechanics stare into the abyss… and the abyss hands them a workforce.

At the start, you meet a Pal. Big eyes. Soft noises. Pure innocence.
You promise to protect it.

A few hours later, it hasn’t seen daylight in a while. It works. It eats. It sleeps. It works again.

You tell yourself it’s necessary.
The base must grow. The machines must run.

Soon you stop naming them.

You optimise.

Production lines stretch across the land. Conveyor belts hum like a lullaby you don’t remember learning. Every Pal has a purpose. Every purpose has a quota. You begin to understand the system… and the system begins to understand you.

There are moments where the game pauses just long enough for a thought to slip in:
“Is this still a game… or am I just efficient now?”

Then something cute waddles past, and you assign it to mining without hesitation.

Performance: runs smoothly
Ethics: deprecated
You: part of the machine

10/10. I did not expect to become the final boss.

Pokémon with guns got me back into gaming at 43
As a 43-year-old dad who barely gets any gaming time anymore, this looked way too childish for me at first glance. Then I stumbled across some YouTube reviews talking about how well it runs on the Steam Deck. "Pokémon with guns and base building" sounded fun enough to give it a shot.
A few weeks in, I keep coming back to it and genuinely enjoy it. Personally, I find it pretty challenging — I die regularly because I walk into fights or areas completely unprepared. Then it's back to the grind: upgrading weapons, gathering resources, catching new Pals. And honestly? That loop is a lot of fun. Sometimes it feels a bit time-consuming, but that's where the Steam Deck shines — just hit the power button, and next session you pick up exactly where you left off.
Would recommend for casual fun. Just messing around with no time pressure and no need to be a hardcore gamer to enjoy it.
👍 Recommended

My friend who I play CS 2 with said if I post a review on this game and it gets 400 likes and 40 Awards that he will buy me a RTX 4070ti and 2 Kilos of canned ham. So I'm just gonna leave this here! Help a brotha out!