Steam, lemmy and reddit are currently creaming themselves over a game which devs makes multiple really cringe "jokes" about slavery and exploitation. Read the steam page descriptions.
Those "pals" are clearly antropomorphised creatures being dogwhistle for humans. And if you read the game reviews, even the g*mers are not lost on that fact (just they love that):
Right? It seems to be just another early access survival crafting game like the dozens if not hundreds of others that have come and gone over the last several years. The only gimmick seems to be "what if you could abuse Pokemon haha we're so edgy" and over 90% of players seem to agree that's a good enough gimmick to carry the rest of the game.