When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, was launched, it quickly drew comparisons to Pokemon, with many dubbing it "Pokemon with guns." Despite the comparison not being Pocketpair's favorite, as noted by communications director John 'Bucky' Buckley, the allure of collecting adorable monsters has led many to wonder if Palworld would ever make its way to the Nintendo Switch, the preferred platform for Pokemon 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. I had the opportunity to speak with Buckley at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco following his talk titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.' During our conversation, I also inquired about the possibility of a release on the rumored Nintendo Switch 2. Buckley expressed interest but noted that Pocketpair hasn't yet had access to the new console's specifications.
"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."
Pocketpair is currently involved in a lawsuit with Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics, which has led some to speculate that this might be the real reason Palworld hasn't been released on the Switch. However, Buckley clarified during his GDC talk that the lawsuit isn't the primary barrier to releasing games on Nintendo's platforms. He mentioned that the lawsuit came as a surprise to the team, despite having conducted numerous 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 question remains whether Nintendo would allow a game it has taken issue with to be released on its next-generation console. We will be posting our full interview with Buckley from GDC later this week, so stay tuned for more updates on Palworld. In the meantime, if you've taken a break from the game, now is a great time to return, as Palworld recently introduced cross-platform play in its latest update.
