Palworlds gathering doesn't feel like a gathering chore, you don't spend much time gathering stuff you mostly spend time exploring and catching monsters or organizing the monsters work.

It wouldn't have become so popular if it is the slow kind of grindy chores you talk about, in general the most popular such games has a lot of things to make it not feel like a chore because most people don't like chores.

But a game reviewer can't really pick what they play, they have to play new shitty games that will never be popular all the time and then I can see how you start to associate these things with chores.

Agree, but disagree on the popularity argument, Ark was very famous and there was a crazy amount of grinding.

That being said, I'm not into pokemon-like games anymore, I suspect the automated battles are not my thing anymore, the fights are too dull and don't endanger you

This isn't a pokemon like game though, it is nothing like pokemon at all except the design of the monsters. Palworld is Ark but without all the grinding and pokemon instead of dinosaurs, but add a factory aspect where you can automate everything with those pokemons unlike the ark grinding and add a lot more content like bosses and events and npc's.

Arks niche at the time was taming dinosaurs, today that isn't anything special but Palworld take that concept and makes everything much better about it and around it. Other than dinosaurs that Ark is the worst survival game I've ever played, but the dinosaurs is what makes that game tick, and you don't have to spend much time on other aspects of the game.

I see, from my understanding there was still a bunch of times "wasted" fighting dull monsters, but if that part is limited, it might be more appealing.

Not sure I'm interested in the factory aspect though, I feel Factorio and Dyson Sphere Program already excel at that

The factory isn't like factorio factories, it is more like rimworld where the monsters go and do the tasks they are fit for and ferry items to where they belong.

So the main gameplay loop there is you have tasks you want done, you go out and search for and catch monsters that can do those tasks and then build out more and more. You don't have to do a lot of focused thinking like in those factory design games, such games takes too much effort to be as popular as palworld.

I see, it's worth a shot, different from what I used to. I haven't played rimworld yet because my experience with prison architect wasn't the greatest (no idea what to build or why)