Pickmon Rebrands to Pickmos Amid Design Similarity Backlash

A survival crafting game featuring creature collection mechanics has rebranded from Pickmon to Pickmos amid widespread criticism over design similarities to established franchises, developers announced this week.

PocketGame, the studio behind the title, unveiled Pickmon last month on Steam as a multiplayer open-world experience where players capture creatures using cards, assemble teams for combat and survival, and utilize them as mounts to explore a vast ecosystem. The game's trailers and concept art quickly drew comparisons to Nintendo's Pokémon series, with creatures resembling Pikachu, Charizard, and Lucario, as well as elements from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, such as a character hovering over mountainous terrain, and even figures from Overwatch like Roadhog. Some observers also pointed to resemblances with Palworld, another creature-collecting survival game currently facing a patent infringement lawsuit from Nintendo against its developer, Pocketpair.

In response to the backlash, PocketGame posted on X that the name change to Pickmos aims to better reflect the game's "brand identity and lore." The developers explained that the suffix "mos" evokes "a complete...