When Pocketpair launched their monster capturing survival adventure game, Palworld, the gaming community quickly drew comparisons to Pokemon, dubbing it "Pokemon with guns." Despite the comparison not being favored by Pocketpair's 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.
However, Buckley has stated that a Nintendo Switch release is unlikely due to technical constraints. "If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld is a beefy game," he explained. This statement was made during a conversation at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco following Buckley's talk titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.'
Regarding the possibility of a release on the rumored Nintendo Switch 2, Buckley expressed interest but noted that Pocketpair hasn't yet seen the specifications for the new console. "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," he shared. He added that if the new console is powerful enough, it would be worth considering, especially given their successful optimizations for the Steam Deck. "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 navigating 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 barrier preventing Palworld from appearing on the Switch. Buckley briefly addressed the lawsuit during his GDC talk, expressing that it was unexpected and that the team had conducted extensive legal reviews prior to the game's release to avoid such issues. "Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan [of Pokemon]," Buckley mentioned, "so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain."
The ongoing legal battle raises questions about whether Nintendo would permit a game it has contested to be released on its next-generation console. As for more insights from Buckley, IGN will be posting the full interview later this week, so stay tuned for further updates on Palworld. In the meantime, if you've taken a break from the game, now might be a great time to return, especially with the recent update introducing cross-platform play.
