The next game from Palworld developer Pocketpair already has a demo, right after it went viral for looking an awful lot, at least visually, like Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight. So if you want to try the Metroidvana meets roguelike with multiplayer, or just want to see what all the fuss was about, now you can do so firsthand.
All eyes are on Pocketpair after Palworld’s instantaneous and meteoric success, so naturally we’re all curious about what the team is doing next. It’s a Metroidvania game called Never Grave, and fans of the genre will very quickly notice that it has a very, very similar visual style to Hollow Knight.
From Pocketpair’s internal studio formed just for the game, Frontside 180, Never Grave is being developed by an offshoot of the team behind Palworld and is slated for a Q1 2024 release date; you can see it in action below.
It’s no secret then that Pocketpair and Frontside 180’s next game looks an awful lot like Hollow Knight, with comments from Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe also resurfacing after Palworld went viral that are quite illuminating.
“I’ve always loved Nintendo games, and that hasn’t changed,” Mizobe says in a 2022 interview after being asked about his time as a student at a Nintendo seminar. “I also deeply respect [them]. However, when it comes to making games, Nintendo has a strong philosophy of creating new and unique games with high quality, and this was questioned at the Nintendo Game Seminar.
“On the other hand, I have a deep-rooted desire for my work to be enjoyed by as many people as possible, and to that end, if there are good ideas in the world, I pick them up, and I don’t necessarily have to be particular about originality. I’m thinking about it. I want to make it more casually. I think it would be a good idea to create things in a way that just jumps on what is trendy (lol).”
That said, it does have an enemy possession system, co-op play, and base building, all of which aren’t present in Hollow Knight. You can try Never Grave for yourself on Steam right here.
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