When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, was released, it drew immediate comparisons to Pokemon, earning the nickname "Pokemon with guns." Despite the comparisons not being Pocketpair's favorite, as noted by communications director John 'Bucky' Buckley, the allure of collecting adorable monsters has sparked interest in whether Palworld could make its way to the Nintendo Switch, the traditional home of Pokemon games.
Unfortunately, Buckley has confirmed that a Nintendo Switch release isn't feasible, citing technical limitations. "If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld is a beefy game," he stated. I had the chance to discuss this further with Buckley at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, following his talk titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.' During our conversation, I also inquired about the possibility of a release on the rumored Nintendo Switch 2. Buckley expressed interest but admitted that without seeing the specs, it's too early to tell if a port is possible. "We haven't seen those specs yet," he said. "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 discussions, Pocketpair is also dealing with a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics. This has led to speculation that the lawsuit might be the real reason Palworld hasn't appeared on the Switch. However, Buckley clarified during his GDC talk that the lawsuit isn't the primary barrier to releasing on Nintendo's platforms. He mentioned that the lawsuit came as a surprise to the team, despite having conducted numerous legal checks before the game's release. "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 question remains whether Nintendo would allow a game it has taken issue with to be released on its next-generation console. We'll be posting our full interview with Buckley later this week, so stay tuned for more insights on Palworld. In the meantime, if you've taken a break from the game, now might be a great time to jump back in, especially with the recent update that introduced cross-platform play.
