Pickmon: A Fusion of Pokémon & Palworld, Dodging Legal Battles with Card Captures

Pickmon is the new game set to become a major talking point, as it combines the best elements of Pokémon with the already well-known Palworld. This entails merging creature capture with open-world survival and crafting, in the vein of Palworld. The title just appeared on Steam with its first trailer, and as expected, it's already generating significant buzz due to these striking similarities.

To avoid the same legal disputes that Palworld faced, Pickmon completely eschews Pokéballs. Instead, creatures are captured using cards. Beyond this, the game features exploration, combat, base building, farming, and even industrial automation for crafting equipment and weapons. In this way, it attempts to replicate Palworld's highly successful strategy, a game that, by early 2026, had already sold over 25 million copies.

This is how Pickmon looks, featuring an enticing multiplayer mode

In this specific case, Pickmon appears to be more of a Palworld clone than a Pokémon one. On Steam, it's described as an open-world game with online co-op, exploration across various biomes (jungles, deserts, tundras, and volcanoes), and creatures that accompany the player in both combat and support tasks. The game is marketed as an open-world survival experience for up to 32 players, reinforcing its closer ties to the multiplayer survival genre than to a classic creature RPG.

Now comes the interesting part: the design of all these creatures and characters. With Pickmon, the same phenomenon as Palworld occurs: a strong resemblance to Pokémon. Furthermore, in this case, there are even designs that appear heavily 'inspired' by Zelda and even Overwatch. If you watch the trailer, you're highly likely to spot characters very similar to Pikachu, Pawmi, Koraidon, Lapras, Piplup, Charizard, Link (Zelda), or Roadhog (Overwatch). This is why initial news and comments about the game revolve around whether it's a copy, a parody, or even a project intended to provoke an immediate reaction, which is what gave Palworld its popularity.

The game already has its Steam page, but still lacks a release date

As far as we know, Pickmon is developed by PocketGame studio and published by NETWORKGO. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese industry is behind this game. For now, it seems to be aiming to generate buzz for visibility ahead of an early access launch sometime in 2026. It was presented during Summer Game Fest 2026. And yes, it appears to be a game that recycles or features creatures and animations excessively similar to those from other games. This could entail legal risks even before its release.

Pickmon appears to be the first game under the PocketGame studio name. On the other hand, NETWORKGO on Steam is linked to Hainya World, an early access survival game launched in 2023 that has garnered very little popularity and likely sold only a handful of copies. Therefore, it's clear that Pickmon wouldn't be newsworthy were it not for the strong similarity of its creatures to Pokémon and its gameplay style to Palworld.

In essence, we have the creature-capturing genre mixed with survival, building, and automation. The novelty is that all of this goes a step further with a multiplayer mode for up to 32 players. As of now, Pickmon has achieved something very specific: immediate visibility. It remains to be seen whether this visibility will translate into genuine interest in the game or if it will be reduced to a passing controversy born from the trailer and its Steam page. Palworld, in its day, ended up impressing and silencing critics, but this seems more like a copy of Palworld than an original idea.