‘Palworld’ Develops a Dating Sim ‘More Than Just Friends’ That is Actually Happening

A year ago, Palworld decided its April Fool’s joke would be posting that a dating sim, “Palword: More Than Just Pals,” would be released for the game, a pretty obvious gag and one the community seemed to enjoy.

Well, fast-forward a year later, and a day before April Fool’s Day, PocketPair has confirmed that this time around, they’re not kidding. This is a real game, really in development, really able to be wishlisted on Steam right now.

It is uh, well it’s something. Here’s the new trailer they’ve release for the game, and yes, this includes dating actual pals in addition to human characters from the game:

Among the gameplay featured, there’s staring at a (human) nurse’s chest, patting a female Chillet on the head, and a jealous Splatterina threatening to murder you. This is all…a lot.

It feels like all this started back when Palworld was first released, and Pals like Lovander were designed to be uh, well, here’s Lovander:

As part of this announcement, there’s a context for fans to win a Lovander body pillow, cementing her status as the focal point of this concept.

I guess I’m not in the category of people who were dying for this to become a reality, but I mean, sure, whatever. Once again, fans seem to be enjoying the fact that Palworld is now bringing this to life, and I’m laughing thinking about whether Nintendo would ever do something like this with its IP. Not in a trillion years.

One thing to note, as Palworld has now reteweeted the April Fool’s joke, is that in the original post they said there will be “an adult version” released where Pals “take off their clothes.” Given that Pals do not actually wear clothes in the game, that seems like a gag. But now there are in fact a lot of human characters in this real game, so who knows. Palworld is clearly not meant to be an adult game at baseline, rated PEGI 12.

There’s no price for this, no release date, just the ability to wishlist the game on Steam. Again, I know there are some people who may think that this is another April Fool’s bit, but it isn’t, and if it was, that joke really wouldn’t work twice. Palworld’s social media manager Bucky has chimed in to remind everyone “YOU KEPT ASKING FOR IT.”

So yes, this is certainly…something. I am very curious about how this is going to go in practice and how far exactly PocketPair is going to take this concept. It could start cute and odd and go some interesting places if pushed further, I imagine. We’ll see when we hear more, and if Palworld has some sort of separate April Fool’s joke planned for tomorrow. I’m not sure why they’d bother after this.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.