We regret to inform you that Palworld has a smutty lizard 'seeking a night of love' with humans, which raids bases in hordes of 'rampaging fangirls'

A lizard-like pal from Palworld, Lovander, chasing down a pal.

(Image credit: Pocketpair)

Palworld is an edgy game—more in implication than reality. While it's grown a reputation for a Happy Tree Friends-style subversiveness, everything in its world is pretty sanitised. For instance: Pals eat human cadavers, but they just peck at them until they vanish.

The whole game feels like a send-up of Pokémon's simmering 'it's messed up if you think about it' worldbuilding and Pokédex entries, just more overt. As is the case with Lovander, a pal that explicitly wants to bone down with humans. Lovander is number 69 in the Paldeck, naturally, and its entry reads as follows:

"Seeking a night of love, it is always chasing someone around. At first it only showed interest in other pals, but in recent years humans have become a target of its debauchery." What's more, these things can raid your base as a pack of fangirls with adjectives ranging from 'bandwagon' to 'rampaging'. Lovander also drops mushrooms, cake, as well as strange and suspicious juices.

Lovander's design, meanwhile, seems to be a pretty obvious parody of Pokémon's Salazzle, which has a cloud of "poisonous gas" that "contains lots of pheromones that attract male Salandit", the implication being that this lizard is a bit of a perv. I should take this opportunity to warn you that you should not Google "Salazzle" in any capacity. Don't repeat my mistakes.

An image comparing Lovander from Palworld to Salazzle from Pok&eacute;mon, both lizard, poison-breathing creatures with salacious appetites. — (Image credit: Pocketpair / The Pokémon Company)

In terms of what Lovander does, it's all above-board—nothing salacious actually happens in the game world. Despite being a normal-element pal, Lovander's mostly just there to cause you real-life psychic damage. What makes things worse is that it actually seems a pretty viable choice for your base.

Lovander has Handiwork 2, Medicine Production 2, and Mining 1—as well as transportation 2. Those are decent stats for mid-game players. It also has an ability that gives you lifesteal when you fight with it, which means that… yeah, you probably want to use the sex shitpost pal if you encounter them. I'm so sorry.

Like a lot of Palworld's edgier jokes, Lovander is uncomfortable to think about but entirely possible to ignore. It's just another thing to push to the back of your mind while you enjoy the game's otherwise decent core gameplay loop.

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.