Palfarm Announced as Palworld’s Farming Spin-Off After Pokémon Pokopia Reveal

Palworld developer Pocketpair has announced a new farming spin-off, Palfarm, less than two weeks after Nintendo revealed its own Pokémon life-sim project, Pokopia. The timing of the two reveals has drawn attention, especially since both titles revolve around farming, crafting, and community building.

Palfarm places players on a countryside plot where they can team up with Pals to grow crops, mine for resources, and interact with local townsfolk. Pocketpair’s new project does not stop at the expected life-sim elements, though. Players will also encounter hostile Pals that can raid their farms, adding a combat layer to the farming routine. As the game’s Steam page explains, “After all, combat is a form of harvesting in its own way.”

Visually and mechanically, Palfarm seems inspired by the success of farming sims like Stardew Valley, a genre that has grown steadily over the past decade. Pocketpair is positioning the game as a lighter, cozier counterpoint to Palworld’s monster-collecting survival mechanics, but it does not escape the comparisons to Nintendo’s recent Pokopia reveal.

Pokopia, announced during the September Nintendo Direct, is being developed by Koei Tecmo Games with Game Freak involvement. The project will launch on Switch 2 in 2026. Unlike traditional Pokémon games, Pokopia takes a slow-life approach with Ditto as the main character, albeit in a humanoid form. Players can befriend Pokémon, learn their abilities to improve farming and environmental restoration, and build out a personal settlement that can attract new visitors. The design borrows elements from Animal Crossing and Minecraft, with seasonal shifts, day-night cycles tied to real-world time, and a heavy focus on customization.

Nintendo’s reveal positioned Pokopia as a cozy evolution of the franchise, a contrast to the battle-focused core entries. Koei Tecmo’s prior work on Dragon Quest Builders 2 suggests an emphasis on town creation, crafting, and social mechanics, signaling a broader attempt to explore genres that have exploded in popularity across indie and mainstream markets alike.

The arrival of Palfarm so soon after Pokopia’s announcement fuels discussion about Pocketpair’s track record of chasing Nintendo’s ideas. Palworld itself has faced criticism for drawing heavily on Pokémon concepts, sparking legal tensions between the companies. Nintendo has an ongoing lawsuit against Pocketpair, recently strengthened by a new patent related to monster summoning. The company has also challenged Pocketpair’s stance that mods count as original content.

Despite the looming legal pressure, Pocketpair continues to expand the Palworld universe. The base game remains in development toward a 1.0 release next year, with the studio committed to refining its systems and addressing technical issues. Palfarm, meanwhile, is available to wishlist on Steam but has not yet received a release date or confirmation of console versions.

Both Palfarm and Pokopia highlight how monster-collecting franchises are diversifying into adjacent genres. While Stardew Valley, Minecraft, and Animal Crossing paved the way for accessible farming and crafting simulations, major studios and indie developers alike are now building their own variations. For players, this overlap presents more choices, but for the companies behind these games, it raises familiar questions about originality, influence, and the boundaries of inspiration.

Read more about Palword: Palword V0.6.0 x Terraria in previous updates.

With Palfarm’s reveal arriving only eleven days after Pokopia’s announcement, comparisons between the two will likely follow both games into their release cycles. Nintendo has already secured its launch window, with Pokopia expected in 2026, while Palfarm’s timeline remains undefined. Until more details emerge, Pocketpair faces the challenge of differentiating its farming spin-off from Nintendo’s next experiment, all while managing the unresolved legal disputes that continue to shadow its projects.