Pokemon and Palworld clones are officially out of hand, as fans react to "lawsuitmaxxing" new game Pickmon and its "straight up rip-offs" of iconic 'mons like Charizard

Amid all the Pokemon and Palworld clones out there, fans have found one that may just take the cake as the most egregious yet – a so-called "multiplayer open-world survival crafter" known as Pickmon… yes, Pickmon.

Over a year ago, the Nintendo-owned Pokemon Company filed a lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair for patent infringement – a case that's still ongoing. It's a situation that's still fresh in fans' memories, especially with Palworld's big 1.0 update underway.

It seems like Nintendo and Pocketpair might have to set their sights elsewhere for a bit, however, as Pickmon is undeniably a doppelganger of sorts… of both games.

As per its official Steam page, Pickmon is currently in development by a studio called – wait for it – PocketGame. No, not Pocketpair. PocketGame. Much like in Pokemon and Palworld, you're tasked with building up a team of "Pickmon" to "fight, farm, and build industrial empires while thwarting a shadowy organization's plot."

I wonder what the organization could be called. Team Shmocket? Shmayne Shmyndicate?

In all seriousness, the whole creature-collecting vibe matches Pokemon and Palworld's, except you use cards to capture Pickmon. It's not like a deck builder or anything – you literally fling singular cards at the beasties to catch them.

Unsurprisingly, the web has caught wind of the game and the fact that it's, well, undeniably a blatant clone. One person points out the similarity between PocketGame and Pocketpair in a post, amused.

"They're even called PocketGame LMAO," they write. "I can't stop laughing. We're now living in the Slop era of Slop World clones."

Elsewhere, another person shares a thread noting that the Pickmon screenshots feature an obvious copy of Pokemon's own Charizard. "My brother in Christ, they even copied Charizard and made him into a bird type. What fresh madness did we all wake up to today?"

Interestingly enough, a commenter points out that it might actually be a rip-off of a Palworld design redone to look like a Pokemon design.

"There's layers to this because that's a stolen model from Palworld edited to look like a Charizard," they explain. "The same way Palworld made its models using Pokemon as bases." Attached is a picture of Quivern from Palworld, which, when mixed with Charizard, looks like the Pickmon model.

"It's like this whole game is made to parody Palworld's bad practices by highlighting what they did," the person concludes.

A separate poster echoes the sentiment that Pickmon is indeed a shameless clone, stating, "This game is going to get heavily sued by Nintendo; it's got Pikachu, Charizard, straight up rip-offs of Pokemon, and is called 'Pickmon?' What am I seeing right now?" I mean, I do see their point.

And apparently, plenty of other folks do, too. My favorite thing to come of all this has to be the humor surrounding it, though.

As one user jokes, "Y'know what, I think it's really ballsy to even jack the shit from Palworld. I hope someone makes a game that just rips Pickmon's designs too, and it just becomes this weird game of telephone."

Wouldn't that be something? Keep your eyes peeled for Pickpalmon, I suppose.

"Hurry up with Palworld 1.0": An impatient fan spams Pocketpair's indie publishing arm with a "great pitch" begging for the survival game's full launch