When Pocketpair's innovative monster capturing survival game, Palworld, hit the market, it quickly drew comparisons to the iconic Pokemon series, often being dubbed "Pokemon with guns." While Pocketpair's communications director, John 'Bucky' Buckley, finds the comparison less than ideal, the allure of collecting and commanding a group of endearing creatures has sparked interest in whether Palworld could ever find its way to the Nintendo Switch, the traditional home of Pokemon.
Unfortunately, Buckley has dashed those hopes, citing technical limitations. "If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld is a beefy game," he explained. I had the opportunity to discuss this further with Buckley at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, following his engaging talk, 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.'
During our conversation, I also inquired about the potential for a release on the rumored Nintendo Switch 2. Buckley expressed interest but admitted that without access to the new console's specifications, it's too early to tell. "We haven't seen those specs yet," he noted. "Like everyone else, we're waiting. I'm walking around GDC hoping someone will tell me them, but everyone I've spoken to says they haven't even seen them. If it's beefy enough, it's 100% worth considering. We did a lot of optimization for Steam Deck, which we were really happy with. Still work to do, but we're really happy with how it turned out. So we would like to get it on more handhelds if possible."
Amidst these technical considerations, Pocketpair is also dealing with a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics. Some speculate that this legal battle might be the true reason behind Palworld's absence from the Switch. However, Buckley clarified during his GDC talk that the lawsuit is not the primary barrier to releasing on Nintendo's platforms. He briefly touched on the lawsuit, mentioning that it caught the team off guard despite their thorough legal checks prior to the game's launch. "Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan [of Pokemon]," Buckley shared, "so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain."
The looming question remains: would Nintendo allow a game it has contested legally to be featured on its next-generation console? As we await the full interview with Buckley from GDC, which will be posted later this week, it's an excellent opportunity for players to revisit Palworld, especially with the recent addition of cross-platform play in the latest update.
