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Nintendo look away: Palworld and other creature collecting games are cheap on Steam right now

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Steam’s Creature Collector Fest will be live for the week.

Three Lamballs man mounted machineguns in Palworld.
(Image credit: Pocketpair)

As long as you don’t call them Pokémon-likes, games where you collect little monsters and have them fight each other are just legally distinct enough to keep Nintendo’s lawyers away. At least that’s how Steam is framing an entire sale dedicated to them in what it’s calling the Creature Collector Fest.

“Collect fantastical creatures, tame monsters, and score discounts while doing it in this fest that reminds you (some) monsters can be tamed,” the Steam page reads. It doesn’t say anything about these games having collectable gym badges or rival trainers to pester you throughout your journey, so we should be good.

Oh wait, there’s Palworld at a 25% discount. OK, well most of the games will probably slide under Nintendo’s radar unless they explode in popularity and start signing product deals with Sony. Games like Ooblets, Temtem, Cassette Beasts, and Slime Rancher are probably safe. And so are the ones that fall under a more broad definition of creature collector, like Cult of the Lamb, Tiny Pasture, and Loddlenaut.

I won’t tell anyone if you want to pick up Palworld at the lowest price it’s been since March, according to SteamDB. How else are you going to know the lore before the dating sim that is apparently very real comes out? Palworld has a whole roadmap of things coming this year while you wait.

The Creature Collector Fest will run until May 19. It’s the 12th entry in the big calendar of Steam sale dates we have to look forward to. Next up is Zombies vs. Vampires Fest, which feels a little early to have in May, but it's spooky season all year round for some people I guess.

To save you some time, here are the steepest discounts on creature collector games I could find:

Tyler Colp

Tyler has covered videogames and PC hardware for 15 years. He regularly spends time playing and reporting on games like Diablo 4, Elden Ring, Overwatch 2, and Final Fantasy 14. While his specialty is in action RPGs and MMOs, he's driven to cover all sorts of games whether they're broken, beautiful, or bizarre.

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