When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, was launched, it drew immediate comparisons to Pokemon, with many dubbing it "Pokemon with guns." While Pocketpair's communications director, John 'Bucky' Buckley, acknowledges the comparison isn't their favorite, the allure of collecting cute monsters has led to inquiries about a potential release on Nintendo's platform of choice, the Nintendo Switch.
Unfortunately, Buckley has confirmed that a Switch release isn't feasible due to technical constraints. He stated, "If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld is a beefy game."
During the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, following his talk titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop,' Buckley discussed the possibility of a release on the rumored Nintendo Switch 2. He expressed interest but noted that without access to the new console's specifications, it's too early to determine if a port is possible. "We haven't seen those specs yet," Buckley explained. "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."
Despite ongoing legal issues with Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics, Buckley clarified that the lawsuit isn't the primary barrier to releasing Palworld on Nintendo platforms. He briefly touched on the lawsuit during his GDC talk, mentioning that it came as a surprise to the team, despite their efforts to conduct thorough 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 overarching question remains: would Nintendo allow a game it has legally challenged onto its next-generation console?
Stay tuned for our full interview with Buckley from GDC, which will be posted later this week. In the meantime, now is a great opportunity to revisit Palworld, especially with the recent update introducing cross-platform play.
