Palworld's communications head John "Bucky" Buckley and Temtem developer Crema have both gotten out ahead of players looking to pit Palworld and the newly announced Temtem: Pioneers against each other.
During last night's Triple-i Showcase which saw the announcement of titles like Don't Starve Elsewhere and the Buckshot Roulette developer's new Mario Party-esque game Machine Party, Temtem developer Crema announced the Kickstarter for Temtem: Pioneers, which takes the Pokemon-like MMO and splashes it with a bit of the old survival crafting open-world genre. The game was then fully funded within eight hours, so it's locked in to release with an estimated delivery date of December 2028 listed on the Kickstarter page.
Naturally, comparisons to the other Pokemon-inspired survival crafting open-world title Palworld were immediate. Responding to a user the Temtem Twitter account notes, "We akshually had conceptualized Temtem: Pioneers a year before Palworld went public," adding that there's "no shade meant with this, though! We respect Palworld a lot, and their success was very important as an early green light for Pioneers. We have a good relationship with Pocketpair."
Genuinely wish nothing but the best for TemTem and their new game.I know people will throw our name around at them, and attempt to cause a fuss…so I’ll just nip that in the bud now.We thought the trailer looked great and looking forward to playing soon! 🤞 https://t.co/hnu8nQvVcTApril 10, 2026
Pocketpair publishing boss Bucky responds to this message with a tweet of his own, saying: "Genuinely wish nothing but the best for TemTem and their new game. I know people will throw our name around at them, and attempt to cause a fuss…so I'll just nip that in the bud now. We thought the trailer looked great and looking forward to playing soon!"
Palworld itself obviously gets inundated with Pokemon comparisons, and has since the game was first revealed, but so-called 'ripoffs' are a part of every industry. Without Overwatch we don't get Marvel Rivals, but without Team Fortress 2 we don't get Overwatch. Games having similarities is always going to be a part of the industry, but it really isn't that big of a deal. Chances are, your favorite game was inspired by something else at some point.
