One of Steam's most successful Pokémon-likes is doing a Palworld

Pokémon-inspired creature collectors are an ouroboros, and it's just taken another bite of its own tail. During today's Triple-I Initiative showcase, Crema Games—developers of Temtem, one of the more successful Pokémon-likes on Steam—revealed Temtem: Pioneers, "an ambitious open-world survival crafting adventure" where players can collect, battle, and build alongside a team of tameable creatures.

It's a Palworld, in other words. Temtem's doing a Palworld.

"Gather materials, craft equipment, build your base, and find new ways to explore this untamed world. Every new biome introduces new resources, new Temtem, and new ways to interact with the world," Crema said in a press release. "Grow, discover, and build something uniquely you to enjoy with your Temtem."

Like Pocketpair's combination base-builder and creature collector, Temtem: Pioneers will see tamers use the abilities of their gathered Temtem to traverse the landscape, harvest resources for crafting and building, and subdue other superpowered fauna to enlist them for combat and economic development. You know, like protagonists do.

Unlike Palworld, however, it seems like Temtem: Pioneers players will embody and control their Temtem when entering its realtime combat rather than fighting beside them with their own weapons. Presumably, that's because—also unlike Palworld—Pioneers won't feature guns. Or performance-enhancing stimulants. Or harvesting pseudo-Pokémon for their meat and skin.

While that means Temtem: Pioneers won't enjoy the same "Pokémon with guns" buzz that Palworld was able to capitalize on, I'm interested to see what shape its systems take when nobody's packing. Back at Palworld's launch, I thought its preoccupation with its edgelord schtick ultimately made it a weaker game, because it meant it was less interested in its melding of Pokémon-style creature collection with base-building and production automation systems—a genuinely compelling intersection of genre conventions that felt like it was begging for further exploration.

Whether Temtem: Pioneers has promising odds of delivering an engaging take on the concept, however, is an open question. It's arriving as a latecomer—Pokémon has since taken its own crack at mixing open world crafting and creature catching with Pokopia on the Switch 2—and the gameplay shown in the Temtem: Pioneers reveal trailer doesn't actually show Temtem doing anything at the player-built base. Maybe they were on break?

If nothing else, Temtem: Pioneers should be able to avoid any repeats of the Pal Sphere fiasco that left Pocketpair exposed to Poké Ball-based patent lawsuit: All its monster-catching is done with cards instead of orbs. Not today, Nintendo. Not today.

While you can wishlist Temtem: Pioneers on Steam, Crema has also launched a Kickstarter campaign to "rally the community and co-create this exciting new game," a phrasing that inspires more scepticism in 2026 than it might have when the studio launched the original Temtem Kickstarter in 2018. Maybe this time that crowdsource funding will be set aside for use as eventual legal funds. You know, just in case.