{"id":1522041,"date":"2026-03-09T21:39:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T21:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aH5M8dYumxchsFPjqCrGwj"},"modified":"2026-03-09T21:39:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T21:39:30","slug":"steam-game-listing-achieves-knockoff-singularity-by-aping-pokemon-zelda-and-even-overwatch-designs-with-a-shamelessness-palworld-could-only-dream-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/steam-game-listing-achieves-knockoff-singularity-by-aping-pokemon-zelda-and-even-overwatch-designs-with-a-shamelessness-palworld-could-only-dream-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Steam game listing achieves knockoff singularity by aping Pok\u00e9mon, Zelda, and even Overwatch designs with a shamelessness Palworld could only dream of"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Back in our January 2024 launch impressions of Palworld<\/a>, I wasn’t kind about its shameless design counterfeiting, calling its creatures “a surreal gallery of familiar eyes, limbs, and silhouettes” built from “the reassembled pieces of existing Pok\u00e9mon, adding a color swap and a couple tweaked details to hide the Frankenstein stitching.”<\/p>\n

I understand now that I had no idea what shamelessness really looks like. True shamelessness looks like Pickmon, which appeared as a Steam listing<\/a> this week and should immediately communicate the depth of its blatant apery with its name alone. I mean, look at that thing. That’s just Pikachu with dyed eyebrows and a couple bits stuck on. Come on, man.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

(Image credit: Networkgo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Like Palworld, Pickmon claims to be an open-world survival game where you’ll “team up with your Pickmon to fight, farm, and build industrial empires.” And yes, its Pok\u00e9mon have guns, too.<\/p>\n

Compared to Pickmon, however, Palworld feels like a paragon of creative integrity. Pickmon hasn’t filed the serial number off of Pok\u00e9mon\u2014it’s just crossed it out with crayon. And it didn’t stop there: In its trailers and screenshots, Pickmon is also copying homework from the Legend of Zelda, Overwatch, and even Palworld itself.<\/p>\n

Take a look at its key art. In addition to Yassified Meganium and the aforementioned Sleep Paralysis Pikachu, there’s somebody cosplaying Breath of the Wild-era Link while surfing a Temu Charizard and brandishing a submachinegun.<\/p>\n

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\"Pickmon<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

(Image credit: Networkgo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The tower nearby is capped with a FF14 aetheryte for good measure, and down below\u2014in an achievement of creative bankruptcy\u2014is a creature that’s an exact midpoint between Palworld’s Anubis<\/a> and the Lucario<\/a> design on which it’s based.<\/p>\n

Pickmon is doing knockoffs of knockoffs. We’ve reached knockoff singularity. And that’s not all. We’ve also got:<\/p>\n