Developer PocketGame has announced a name change for its creature-collecting game Pickmon, which will now be called Pickmos. According to the studio, the swap was made to "better align with our brand identity and lore" - and definitely not because the game looks strikingly similar to Pokemon and Palworld.
The explanation raises more eyebrows than it lowers. Swapping a single consonant while the game's visual identity and core loop remain closely reminiscent of Nintendo's flagship franchise isn't exactly a rebrand - it's more of a lateral shuffle.
As reported by GameSpot, PocketGame leaned into the lore angle in its official statement, citing a dedication to "building a unique and profound ecological world" since the start of development. That framing is doing a lot of heavy lifting when the creature designs and gameplay systems on display clearly pull from the same DNA as Pokemon and the similarly controversy-adjacent Palworld.
The creature-collector space is getting crowded - and complicated
Pickmos isn't the first title to find itself in Nintendo's crosshairs, or at least its shadow. Palworld sparked a massive conversation last year about how closely a game can mirror Pokemon's formula before it becomes a legal or ethical issue. Nintendo has historically been aggressive about protecting its IP, which makes the timing of a quiet rename from any Pokemon-adjacent project pretty notable.
Whether Pickmos has enough original ideas under the hood to stand on its own merits remains to be seen. The creature-collector genre has genuine room for new entries - Cassette Beasts proved that a game can wear its Pokemon influence openly while still carving out a distinct identity.
For now, the name change reads less like a confident brand pivot and more like a preemptive duck. Pickmos will need to show a lot more of what makes it genuinely different if it wants to avoid being filed under "Pokemon clone" in the long-term memory of the gaming community.
