Nintendo’s lawsuit against Pokémon copycat Palworld hasn’t gone entirely to plan, but I still would have figured that enough knock-offs and blatant uses of the monster-taming series’ iconography had been crushed under the company’s legal heel that it would have dissuaded any other developers from playing with fire. That’s not the case, it seems, as the newly revealed Pickmon is basically a mash-up of Pokémon and Palworld with monster designs that aren’t just flying too close to the sun, they’re sitting in the center of the thing’s solar core.
Pickmon stars a tamer who looks like “we have Breath of the Wild Link at home” and runs around with a Definitely Not Pikachu critter hanging out on his shoulder. The monsters wield firearms like in Palworld, and they face Not That Legally Distinct versions of monsters that look almost identical to Pokémon. Between the trailer and the game’s key art, there are some very obvious inspirations from monsters like Ceruledge, Charizard, Meganium, Lucario, and Cobalion, as well as some that look similar to some of Palworld’s more original designs. But the comparisons don’t stop at Pokémon and Palworld. As some have pointed out, there are characters who look like imitations of Roadhog from Overwatch and the Story of Seasons cow. The main differentiating factor it has is that monsters aren’t captured with balls, but in cards.
The whole thing seems a bit off. Pickmon is requesting that streamers and content creators reach out to feature the game and participate in an early access “experience” before the game goes into public early access in 2027. The game’s Steam page lists PocketGame as the developer, though this is the only game the studio has on Steam. The publisher, NETWORKGO, has previously developed and published Hainya World. The debut trailer says this is a Summer Game Fest 2026 trailer, but that event is three months away, and host Geoff Keighley hasn’t said a word about Pickmon. Summer Game Fest platformed Palworld in the past, though, so it’s not like it would be out of character for the event to showcase a game that was trying to eat Pokémon’s lunch. We’ve reached out to Summer Game Fest for comment and will update the story if we hear back.