A new game seems to be visibly taking influence from Pokémon and Palworld, and a little bit extra.
The game is called Pickmon, and it is developed by a studio named PocketGame, and published by NETWORKGO. This is a survival game with base building, farming, automation, and multiplayer. PocketGame also shared this description of its core mechanic:
Capture Creatures: Use specialized cards to tame various Pickmon and turn them into your most trusted allies!
NintendoLife ran down the ‘inspirations’ that PocketGame took for Pickmon, and some of it is quite brazen. The playable character himself looks like Link from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
To be clear, given the state of Pokémon Company’s lawsuit vs. Palworld, Pickmon may also be legally cleared for copyright. But PocketGame may have crossed another line over that.
Artists el.psy.fake on Instagram and pokejaykay on Twitter allege that Pickmon copied their fanmade Pokémon designs for their characters.
The power imbalance between these artists and a game studio makes it a lot less arguable than two game companies. It wasn’t that long ago when a bigger game company famous for plagiarism was caught doing it again.