No, it wasn't just an April Fool's Day joke, there really is a dating sim coming out based in the Palworld universe. More Than Just Pals, as it's suggestively called, may have started out as a prank, but now it's very real, but don't expect it to be too lewd or crude.
Yesterday, March 31, Pocketpair revealed a fresh trailer, making it seem all too real. Rather than running around looking to pick up pals, the trainers are in high school together, Private Palpagos Academy to be precise, and you have to find romance through navigating those grounds and corridors.
A classic premise, and from the sounds of the description, there'll be plenty of melodrama outside of you trying to find someone to hold hands and do math homework with. But there are strong boundaries here on how far things can go.
"We're not making an 18+ sex game," John 'Bucky' Buckley, Pocketpair's head of publishing and communications, said on the studio's official Discord, when someone asked about depictions of genitalia. As absurd as this might sound, it's a valuable distinction, because there's a large audience for that kind of game, and many of these types of romance sims are quite explicit.
But that's not Pocketpair's intention whatsoever. "It isn't a porno game - obviously," Buckley adds in another comment. "We might be goofy but we aren't that goofy."
Given a lot of Palworld's popularity sprang from being "Pokemon with guns," I would've definitely pegged Pocketpair as being that goofy, but we're all learning things today. It seems like there'll be plenty to keep you on your toes in More Than Just Pals, since eating is apparently possible?
"Will you make friends, become lovers… or—dismantle and eat them?" reads the description on Steam. "Your relationships with the Pals are entirely up to you!" I have many questions that I'm sure will be answered when this game eventually comes out.
