Product Hunt Weekly Digest
January 28th, 2024

PRODUCT HIGHLIGHT
This game sold over 5 million copies in five days

Weā€™re barely a month into 2024, and we might already have the biggest game of the year. No, Spider-Man 3 did not drop overnight. Itā€™s a survival-adventure game thatā€™s being described as ā€œPokĆ©mon with guns.ā€

Since its early-access launch on Steam last week, it has sold over 5 million copies, and itā€™s gotten the gaming world's attention.Ā 

But what is it? Palworld is a survival-adventure game developed by Japanese indie studio, Pocket Pair. The announcement trailer was originally released in 2021, and it starts off fairly cutesy. You control a character roaming a lush and vibrant world where you come across and befriend numerous little critters that can help you build your home, craft tools, and a farm for food.

Then you see the guns. Suddenly, the trailer shifts gear from a cute Animal Crossing / PokĆ©mon vibe to a more FPS atmosphere you might see in some triple-A games.Ā 

Thatā€™s where the survival aspect comes in. While the world looks lush, itā€™s pretty inhospitable, and you have to survive by building shelter, finding food, and fighting enemies ā€“ with guns. You can even give your pals (the monsters are called pals) their own guns to fight alongside you.

The controversy: A number of people have noticed some striking resemblance to a certain other Japanese monster-hunting game, but of course, your favorite little pika is bearing arms. According to Kotaku, the developers arenā€™t too concerned, insisting that the game passed legal reviews and isnā€™t infringing on PokĆ©monā€™s copyright.Ā 

Will you play it?

Find some pals
TALES FROM PLANET INTERNET

šŸ“ˆ $5 billion for Reddit: Reddit is once again in the news cycle for IPO rumors. According to Bloomberg, the company is weighing advice from potential investors that it should IPO at a minimum valuation of $5 billion. Yes, thatā€™s a billion, with a b.Ā 

šŸ„Š Gemini vs GPT-4: The AI race is heating up with two heavyweights going head to head. Googleā€™s Gemini Pro has laid down its marker by clinching second place on the HuggingFace Chat Bot Arena Leaderboard ā€“ ahead of GPT-4.