Palworld is taking the gaming world by storm. The indie-developed monster-catching adventure/survival game has had an amazing early access launch since January 19, eclipsing the 3 million player mark within its first 40 hours of availability on Xbox consoles and PC. It’s also achieved the highest player count of any non-free-to-play game in Steam’s history, with more than 1.1 million active players at its peak (at the time of this article’s publishing), unseating former champion Elden Ring.

Despite its obvious similarities to Pokemon (particularly the closer-to-open-world Pokemon Legends: Arceus), though, a lot of its players are shrugging off the comparisons to Nintendo and Game Freak’s cutesy monster-based empire, as they feel the gameplay is much more reminiscent of some other games on the market, some of which don’t involve catching monsters at all.

One of the more popular comparisons for Palworld is Ark: Survival Evolved. The 2017 game from Studio Wildcard has a much less colorful and cartoonish look, but its mechanics — which include base building and taming close to 200 varieties of dinosaurs and other prehistoric-themed creatures — do seem to bear a lot of similarities (Palworld plays host to more than 100 Pals, its name for recruitable monsters).

Still others have been looking to another long-tenured, anime-inspired monster series, Digimon, as a more accurate assessment of Palworld than the popular “Pokemon with guns” descriptor. Said one player, Reddit user Earth Draco 16, “I mean there is a dragon Digimon that is made entirely of guns called Gundramon.”

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, is another popular topic of comparison. This is probably due in large part to both games’ use of gliders or parachutes to traverse long distances by air and safely reach the ground from great heights, as well as the inclusion of crafting mechanics in both games. There have even been comparisons to the Grand Theft Auto series, centered on both games’ use of a wanted level.

Even with all the other comparisons, though, it’s still Pokemon taking the brunt of the hits, with its fan base in hot conversation over the validity of Palworld. There have been nearly countless assessments of new Pals looking very similar to existing Pokemon, with some fans going so far as to accuse Palworld’s developer of “art theft.” On the other side of the argument, a good-sized section of the Palworld fan base has been accepting of the nearly identical designs but is holding Pokemon accountable for its lackluster releases over the past several years.

Whatever Palworld’s true inspirations are, it’s already setting records, and it’s clearly an early frontrunner for the list of 2024’s most popular games.