From our other sites
The story
Palworld, which became a massive hit during its 2024 early access period and had expanded by 2026 into a full release complete with trading cards, has become a hot topic after disappearing from the concurrent-player rankings entirely. On the 5ch “Hardware/Industry (Geha)” board, the prevailing theory is that players have been flowing over to the new free-to-play title animo (which carries a Metacritic score in the 70s, roughly the same as Palworld’s), and reports noted that Palworld has also plunged to a global rank of 102 on SteamDB’s sales charts. Since Palworld itself borrowed heavily from ARK-style survival games, opinions were split between those amused by the “one copycat getting devoured by another copycat” irony and those who simply argued the game itself had gotten boring.
What people said
Honestly, this was totally expected.
It's always another copycat that ends up killing a copycat.
Same thing happened with Genshin Impact going to war with other Chinese gacha games.
Pokémon is just on a whole different level.
That's because Switch already has the real Pokémon to play.
Exactly.
Looking back on it now, it was a game that only ever had hype going for it.
You can build a base, but it's shockingly shallow.
Crafting with no real production-line system is just boring.
https://krsw.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/ghard/1789764070/
Back then Palworld could still crack the top 18…
Guess it's been completely eaten alive now.
Who even cares anymore.
It only just got its full release this year and even got a trading card game, and this is how it ends up 😭
Exactly.
Saying it's more fun than Pokémon just screams you've never actually played either one.
Soulslike? Great, go for it!
Monster Hunter-like? Great, go for it!
Pokémon-like? We'll spend 3 billion yen to crush you.
That's not a '-like,' that's a straight-up design ripoff.
And if that copy turns out more fun, users will drop you without a shred of mercy.
It was undercutting Pokémon on price to get an edge, but once an even cheaper (free) game showed up, that was game over.
Guess they'll just keep eating each other alive, getting weaker, and fading out one by one.
Meanwhile, Pokémon just kept setting new sales records.
At the end of the day, a fake can never beat the real thing.
Yeah, there's really no character that's actually become popular.
A TCG with weak art appeal won't catch on even if the rules are fun, so it'll probably just quietly die off.
World rank 102, that's absurdly low… it came out this year, no way…
Rank 102 is way too brutal, lol
It's over.
Back when early access was the big talk, there were a few people saying 'I'll buy it when the full version drops,' but I guess there weren't as many as it seemed.
It was only ever hype to begin with, so once the hype's gone, so is the game.
A developer whose only skill is copying was never going to manage ongoing content anyway.
The copycats will just eat each other alive, and in the end the original — Nintendo — will be the one left standing.
Honestly, you have to wonder what this game was even born to do.
Before the copycat showed up, I think it was sitting around rank 50.
That was already low, but this is a brutal crash.
The real problem is the sales rank being low, not just concurrent players.
It's at 102, after all.
China: 'Oh, is that so…❤'
A perfect picture of an idiot who helped create the very lawless environment that let rule-breakers run wild.
So is it the 'true Palworld' that surpasses Palworld, the so-called 'true Pokémon'?
For what it's worth, its Metascore is exactly the same as Palworld's, in the 70s.
Since the reviews are about equal either way, I'd say animo's the better pick since it's free-to-play 😄
I played it a bit, and it feels like Palworld turned into a mobile gacha game cranked way up on microtransactions.
There are limits on getting monsters that make it rough if you don't pay, but pay up and you get them instantly.
Whether you think that's fine or garbage is up to you, but personally, I don't think it's fine.
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
Palworld became an explosive hit during its 2024 early access period, and by 2026 had progressed to a full release along with a card game rollout. Meanwhile, the buzzy new title animo carries a Metacritic score in the same 70s range as Palworld, with the main difference being that it’s free-to-play. In the thread, two different metrics get mixed together — “dropped out of the concurrent-player rankings” and “Steam sales rank 102” — the former referring to a ranking by simultaneous player count, the latter to a sales ranking. As for gameplay, some argue that animo, unlike Palworld’s ARK-style survival approach, leans more toward Pokémon-style collecting and raising, meaning the two aren’t simply interchangeable. The thread’s central disagreement boils down to this: did Palworld genuinely lose out on merit, or did it just get undercut by animo’s free price tag?
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “[Sad News] Palworld Has Its Demand Completely Devoured by a Copycat Game Called animo 😭“.
Leave a Reply