Palworld explains what happens when you overwork your Pals

Palworld is comfortably summarised as 'Pokémon with guns', thanks to its too-familiar character designs and third-person machinegun combat. It's got more going on than that, though. It's also Pokémon with base building, Pokémon with sweat shops, Pokémon with corpse piles.

A new developer tutorial explains how you can 'use Pals efficiently' by putting them to work for you.

"Catch a Pal. Make it work. Catch a Pal. Make it work," advises developers Pocketpair, over footage of Pals constructing machinery and gardens. "But be careful not to overwork your Pals," they note, as the camera pans over to a 12-foot-high tower of the remains of former Pals. "Goodbye!".

I've enjoyed previous Palworld trailers, but they've typically paired footage of Pals performing hard labour with music. The addition of voiceover makes all the difference, because now I'm sure the developers are having the same fun I am. There's good comic timing here.

Plus, as I've said before, Pokémon is already pretty strange, having been made mundane only through repetition. Palworld increasingly looks like it might sit comfortably alongside Slime Rancher, another game in which you exploit cuties for your own progression. And it's not like there aren't already lots of games about fighting creatures with guns. The previously-released how to catch Pals trailer, in which you punch cute cartoon characters, isn't odd at all, really. If you think about it.

Palworld is due to launch into early access in early 2024.