Palworld, the new survival game that's been dubbed "Pokemon with guns," is off to a massive start since officially launching this morning, and players have already been making allllll kinds of discoveries. One of them, however, is, well... it's a little dark.
The general premise of Palworld is, as mentioned, fairly similar to Pokemon, allowing players to explore the world and capture little creatures along the way. Palworld takes it a step further, however, letting players put their critters to work at camp and even offering the ability to cook and eat said critters once they're outlived their usefulness. And if you thought that sounded gruesome, buckle up: players have discovered that you can capture human NPCs as well.
Streamer Coney was among the first to figure this out, which has also been verified within IGN. The ability to capture humans doesn't seem to be an accident, either. Upon a successful capture, the player is met with the following message: "A captured human. On Palpargos Island, capturing humans in Palspheres is considered inhumane."
You can capture human beings in Palworld pic.twitter.com/nUg7mJw2h6
— Coney (@CONEY) January 17, 2024
So, while scooping up humans like you do regular Pals is frowned upon, the game still absolutely allows you to do it. What's worse is that a captured human can be compelled to do just about anything a Pal can be, including chores at camp and being summoned to fight for you.
But oh. It gets darker.
At the risk of letting this genie out of the bottle even more, Coney also noted that you can... sell the humans on the black market. Naturally, this has upset a lot of people.
You can also sell them on the black market (they're worth a LOT) or, if you need materials, pic.twitter.com/qIDjC9Dj79
— Coney (@CONEY) January 17, 2024
I am literally floored at how many tweets I’ve seen saying that being able to catch and sell humans in PalWorld is a good thing and a reason to buy the game??
— Skraw! VGC (@JacobSkraw) January 18, 2024
palworld letting you capture people to do human trafficking but popping up a tooltip to tell you that in the setting human trafficking is illegal and taboo really is just an incredibly powerful Video Game Moment huh
— tctc副官 (@ToastCrust) January 17, 2024
Not that we would endorse this anyway, but if the compromise to your moral compass wasn't enough, a colleague of mine who's tried this notes that humans are actually pretty bad at everything outside of very basic camp labor work. So... maybe still don't do this.
IGN has reached out to Palworld developer Pocketpair for comment on these, uh, discoveries. For more on Palworld, check out our early access review in progress.
Travis Northup contributed to this report.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
