The Palworld dating sim started out as a joke, but now it’s very real

It’s real: The Palworld dating sim has a Steam page and everything. What started out as an April Fools’ Day joke last year is now an actual game that’s in development at Pocketpair.

And just to be sure about this, we reached out to Pocketpair to confirm that Palworld: More Than Just Pals isn’t another April Fools’ joke and will update this story when we hear back. However, Pocketpair communications director John “Bucky” Buckley said on X that the announcement “doesn’t concern April Fools’” on X.

Palworld: More Than Just Pals pulls the Pokémon-like creatures out of the popular survival game and puts them into a high school setting. Your character is a transfer student at Palpagos Private Academy and is keen to meet some pals.

“It’s up to you whether you stay friends with the pals, develop romantic relationships with them, or even dismember and eat them,” the Steam description ominously reads. Pal butchery is not the part of Palworld I expected to be brought over into the dating sim, but it might hint at something more sinister going on in the story than the description lets on. The original trailer has some similarities to Doki Doki Literature Club.

There are a number of pals you can meet, including Katress, Lovander, Chillet, Quivern, Tarantriss, and Splatterina. Pocketpair also threw in some humans if you’re into that sort of thing. A handful of these characters showed up in the first trailer, which might mean it was never intended to be entirely a joke — although that trailer also had an April 1, 2025 release date that obviously wasn’t real.

The new trailer is very similar, but it only ends with a confirmation that Palworld: More Than Just Pals is in development. I hope it comes out next year on April Fools’ Day so that everyone remains just as confused as they are now.

Speaking of things that aren’t jokes and are actually very real: The official Palworld X account is celebrating the announcement by giving away a Lovander body pillow.