When Pocketpair released their monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, it quickly drew comparisons to Pokemon, often dubbed "Pokemon with guns." Although Pocketpair's communications director, John 'Bucky' Buckley, isn't fond of this comparison, the concept of collecting cute monsters has led many to wonder if Palworld could ever find its way onto the Nintendo Switch, the go-to platform for Pokemon.
Unfortunately, Buckley has dashed those hopes, citing technical challenges. "If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld is a beefy game," he explained. This statement came during a conversation at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, following Buckley's talk titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.'
Curiosity about a potential release on a future Nintendo Switch 2 also arose. Buckley expressed interest but noted that Pocketpair has yet to see the specifications for the new console. "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."
Speculation has also swirled around a lawsuit from Nintendo against Pocketpair over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics. Some believe this could 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 was unexpected, despite the team conducting extensive legal reviews before 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 question remains whether Nintendo would allow a game it's taken legal action against onto its next-generation console. Pocketpair's full interview with Buckley from GDC will be available later this week, offering more insights into Palworld. In the meantime, it's an excellent opportunity to revisit the game, especially with the recent addition of cross-platform play in its latest update.
