Palworld developer Pocketpair has once again announced a dating sim spin-off, but this time it may be genuine.
The studio posted a ‘trailer’ for a game called Palworld: More Than Just Pals, a dating game based on Palworld.
Despite claiming the game would be released on April 1, 2025, however, the fact that the trailer was published on April 1 last year led everyone to assume it was an April Fool’s joke.
However, the studio has now posted a second trailer for the game, and this time it’s accompanied by a Steam page, suggesting it may be genuine after all.
According to the game’s Steam description, Palworld: More Than Just Pals is a “dream school romance” sim, in which players can befriend Pals, then decide whether to befriend them, romance them or eat them.
“You, the protagonist, enrol as a transfer student in the prestigious Palpagos Private Academy,” the game’s Steam description reads. “You will meet unique friends (pals) and enjoy school life through friendship and romance. It’s up to you whether you stay friends with the pals, develop romantic relationships with them, or even dismember and eat them.”
While there’s still a chance this is the continuation of an April Fool’s joke from last year, the official Palworld account on X appears to be insisting this is a legitimate product.
When one follower stated “not again, this April joke feels sad,” the official account replied: “April joke? What? Wishlist now on Steam.”
The studio’s communications director and publishing manager John ‘Bucky’ Buckley also posted: “You all kept asking for it so here it is – the Palworld dating sim Steam page is live, along with a nice new trailer showing off some more of the characters. Good idea? Bad idea? Who cares! Someone will be happy!”
This wouldn’t be the first time a video game related April Fool’s ‘joke’ would eventually become a real product. In 2019, Yakuza / Like a Dragon developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio posted an April Fool’s video suggesting the next game in the series would feature turn-based combat. Nine months later, it turned out to be the case.
On April Fool’s Day two years ago Sega also released The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, a visual novel in which Sonic is killed aboard a train and players have to figure out who the killer is.
The most notable example, however, was Pokémon Go, which started life as a 2014 April Fool’s joke when Nintendo‘s Satoru Iwata, The Pokémon Company‘s Tsunekazu Ishihara and Google Maps collaborated on the Pokémon Challenge.
