The developers around the overnight sensation Palworld are dealing with more than just pushback against the game. According to multiple people from developer PocketPair, developers and artists of Palworld have been receiving death threats.
The threats seem to stem from allegations against the game for being a “rip off” of Pokemon.
“Frantically working through all my DMs and emails! I promise!” community manager Bucky said on Twitter. “However, you’ll excuse me if I skip over the death threats, threats to the company and massively outlandish claims.”
The studio’s CEO, Takuro Mizobe, also took to Twitter to condemn the threats.
“Currently, we are receiving slanderous comments against our artists, and we are seeing tweets that appear to be death threats,” he said.
“I have received a variety of opinions regarding Palworld, but all productions related to Palworld are supervised by multiple people, including myself, and I am responsible for the production. I would appreciate it if you would refrain from slandering the artists involved in Palworld.”
Whether there is justification for the claims of Palworld plagiarizing Pokémon or not, going as far as to issue death threats for any reason, let alone a video game, is not ok and should never happen.