Are Palworld Pal Designs AI Generated?

Palworld is the latest monster-catching game to take the world by storm, pitching itself to players as ‘Pokemon with guns’. However, upon Early Access release, Palworld has stirred a controversy, as many of the creature designs look suspiciously similar to Pokemon, thus stirring a debate on whether these concepts were generated using AI.

We’ve got all the details you’ll need to know about if this is fact or fiction, so follow along below.

Why Do People Think Palworld Has AI Generated Designs? Explained

Palworld, which became playable on Jan. 19, 2023, has very quickly come under heat from social media, X (formerly known as Twitter) in particular. There have been many claims and presumptions that many of the assets in Palworld, specifically the monster designs, were created through AI concept art.

There are two reasonings for these rumors, the first being that many of the Palworld designs look suspiciously like Pokemon that already exist. I mean, I get it. Any monster-catching game and its critters will likely be compared to Pokemon, and have some similarities in design — as this is the nature of character creation. However, Palworld in particular contains Pals that in some circumstances, look like re-skinned Pokemon designs.

As much as I love Palworld, I have also been a longtime Pokemon player, and I was extremely surprised at how some of these critters haven’t caught the attention of Nintendo, yet. I’m not exaggerating, either. For example, Palworl’d Leezpunk is clearly very heavily referenced from Pokemon’s Toxtrciity. The only difference between this pal is the hoodie, different eye shape, and addition of some red to its body. While this does make it look slightly different in design, unfortunately, the key elements are all the same — a purple, punk rock lizard with yellow scales.

Sadly, many of the Palworld designs walk less in the world of ‘inspired by Pokemon’ and more on a fine line toward potential copyright infringement. Had Leezpunk’s primary colors been changed from purple and yellow to white and green, for example, then this guy would for sure be unique enough to be considered an original concept. Unfortunately, in Palworld, this is the case for more than half of the monsters, so I truthfully wouldn’t be surprised to see some species receive design tweaks in the future, as the game is still in early access.

Moving on from the monsters being labeled as carbon copies of popular Pokemon, Palworld has also received suspicion of AI due to the viewpoint held against this technology by the owner of Pocketpair, the developer behind the Palworld game. In particular, this guy has shown off some Fakemon (fan-made Pokemon designs) that he generated using AI tools, which raised a lot of eyebrows from suspicious individuals towards Palworld. The post showcasing these AI-made Fakemon designs can be seen below, as well as uses of AI image generation in another Pocketpair game.

This second game shown in the thread is titled AI: Art Imposter, and functions as a multiplayer drawing game; apart from actually drawing images yourself, you command an AI to do the work for you. This means that at least on some level, the workers behind Pocketpair have fully embraced use of AI image generation tools, and even chosen to incorporate this into one of their games, so it’s understandable that others are believing they’d do the same for other titles, such as Palworld.

Palworld – Are the Monster Designs Made with AI? Explained

While Palworld has come under heavy criticism for the possibility of the monster designs being generated by AI, this cannot be confirmed, as there is no hard evidence of these speculations. Pocketpair did indeed hire a concept designer to complete creature design work for the Palworld game, taking on a fresh graduate who was struggling to land a foot in the industry. However, while we do have confirmation that Palworld did have concept designers on board, there is currently no information or resources showing their design process.

On top of this, it was also revealed by the CEO of Pocketpair that this new graduate was able to complete 100 designs for Palworld in a very short amount of time. Whether this means that they were using AI to generate concepts as a base, and then redrawing them can not be confirmed.

However, it is abundantly clear that Palworld creatures were created by taking one or several elements of certain Pokemon and either switching them up a bit or fusing them with others to create some sort of ‘Pokefusion’ looking creature. Take little Cattiva here — right away I recognized this as some sort of mashup between Zorua and Jigglypuff.

When you look at the creature on its own, it seems different enough, but when you evaluate all three side by side, you can start to break down individual aspects and see how it may have been created. Elements such as the tuft of hair, blue gradient eyes with white pupils, slanted eyelids, pointed ears, and sassy expression all add up here.

Another very bold example of the problem between Palworld and Pokemon designs is the Pal known as Direhowl. Right away upon seeing this creature, I was so disappointed, as wolf monsters have always been some of my favorites. Unfortunately, Direhowl looks like an alternate form of the Pokemon Lycanroc, just with a color palette sourced from Mightyena.

At this point, Pocketpair must know that the similarities between the two are heavy, as even the white markings and idle poses are essentially the same. I mean, I know it’s a canine and there’s only so much you can do with creatures on four legs in terms of pose, but there could’ve been a wider stance, a taller stature, or even a sitting pose implemented to help stop comparisons to Lycanroc. Something as simple as a different coat of fur, fluff in different places (not the neck), different eye shapes, or bigger ears could have helped give this Pal a bit more originality in terms of design.

Whether the idea to use Pokemon as heavy references when coming up with Pal designs was done as a choice by the artist to shorten their work process, or they were instructed to use this technique for establishing Palworld creature by the CEO of Pocketpair is currently up for debate. Until further clarity is provided through reliable sources, it is currently up to individual interpretation if these designs were created with AI during their design process.

That’s everything you need to know about if Palworld Pal designs are generated with the use of AI technology. For more helpful guides, tips, and tricks, check out the rest of our content here at Twinfinite. We have a variety of topics to assist you on anything you’ll need help with in Palworld, such as how to get an Egg Incubator so you can start hatching those mysterious shells you find in the wild.