When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, was released, it quickly drew comparisons to Pokémon, often being dubbed "Pokémon with guns." Despite the comparison not being Pocketpair's favorite, as noted by communications director John 'Bucky' Buckley, the allure of collecting adorable creatures has led many to wonder if Palworld might ever find its way onto the Nintendo Switch, the preferred platform for Pokémon games.
Unfortunately, Buckley has confirmed 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.
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 potential for a Nintendo Switch 2 release. He expressed interest but noted that without access to the new console's specifications, it's impossible to determine feasibility at this stage. "We haven't seen those specs yet," Buckley 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."
Despite ongoing legal battles with Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokémon's ball-throwing mechanics, Buckley clarified that the lawsuit isn't the primary barrier to releasing Palworld on Nintendo's platforms. In his GDC talk, he briefly touched on the lawsuit, mentioning that it was unexpected and that the team had conducted extensive legal checks before the game's launch to avoid such issues. "Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan [of Pokémon]," Buckley stated, "so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain."
This raises the question of whether Nintendo would allow a game it has taken legal action against to be available on its next-generation console.
Stay tuned for our full interview with Buckley later this week, where we'll delve deeper into the world of Palworld. In the meantime, it's an excellent opportunity to revisit the game, especially with the recent update introducing cross-platform play.
