Palworld is like virtual crack if you grew up loving Pokemon and Legend of Zelda, and happen to like Ark survival and Fortnight now as an adult.
They have skills & guns that are specific to each Pal, base building & leveling (with goals), mounts (so far we've found riding, gliding and swimming), eggs (So far we've found 3 sizes), seemingly endless crafting options that unlock with points as you level, fast travel check points, stat leveling for you, your pals, and to level up your catch rate (which really comes in handy).
There are local villages, unfriendly villages/towers, and merchants so you are able to buy harder to get stuff (to a certain degree so far).
The general premise of unfriendlies being due to a syndicate gang moving into the area, everyone is now severely poor because they just keep getting deleted for resources.
We haven't even beaten the tutorial boss and we're both around level 14...that boss is SCARY!