When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, was released, it quickly drew comparisons to the beloved Pokemon series, often being dubbed "Pokemon with guns." Despite the comparison not being Pocketpair's favorite, as noted by communications director John 'Bucky' Buckley, the concept of collecting cute creatures has sparked curiosity among fans about whether Palworld would ever make its way to the Nintendo Switch, the home console for Pokemon.
Unfortunately, Buckley dashed those hopes by citing technical constraints. "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 (GDC) in San Francisco following his presentation titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.'
When asked about the possibility of a release on a hypothetical Nintendo Switch 2, Buckley expressed interest but noted that the feasibility remains unknown due to lack of information on the new console's specifications. "We haven't seen those specs yet," he remarked. "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 been rife that a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics might be the real reason Palworld hasn't appeared on the Switch. However, Buckley clarified during his GDC talk that the lawsuit was not the barrier to releasing on Nintendo's platforms. He mentioned that the lawsuit came as a surprise to the team, despite having conducted extensive legal checks beforehand. "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 looming question remains whether Nintendo would welcome a game it has legally challenged onto its next-generation console. As we await the full interview with Buckley from GDC, which will be posted later this week, now is a great time for fans to return to Palworld, especially with the recent addition of cross-platform play in its latest update.
