Palworld probably isn't going to have a meaningful impact on the direction of Pokémon games long term, but it absolutely might be charting the course for a whole new trend in survival crafting games: the era of little dudes with little jobs in your massive, NPC-automated bases.
Survival crafting games blew up after Minecraft in 2010 and their broad design strokes have stayed pretty consistent in the last 14 years. They all start—Palworld included—with picking up rocks and sticks, crafting rudimentary tools, eating berries off bushes, and slapping together a horrible wood shack with a bed in it before nightfall.
