It’s been a turbulent few days for Palworld, to put it lightly. The game has been fraught with controversy as far back as its initial release, but never to this level: A looming Nintendo lawsuit now threatens to stall the game’s progress permanently, and has already done so in Japan.
On some level, perhaps, players should have seen this coming. Palworld‘s elevator pitch always essentially boiled down to “Pokémon with guns,” and Nintendo is not exactly known for being lenient with perceived copyright infringement, to put it lightly.
Since its launch early this year, Palworld has seen a steady stream of content updates and even an Xbox release, all with Nintendo apparently watching and waiting in the background—and just last week, the other shoe dropped. Despite that long-anticipated lawsuit finally being kicked into gear, Palworld soldiered on ahead, announcing and then swiftly releasing a PS5 version at Sony’s State of Play presentation. It’s here that the lawsuit has had its first material consequence: According to Pocket Pair itself, the Japanese console version (Nintendo’s home turf, incidentally) has been “unexpected[ly] delayed” indefinitely.
That hasn’t stopped Pocket Pair from promoting Palworld in Japan, even if the game itself has yet to materialize. Whether or not other versions of the game will follow suit is up in the air at the moment, but Nintendo has made its intention to follow this matter to the end clear, stating that “Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights.”
After surviving controversies around AI art and design theft, it seems worryingly likely that this lawsuit will prove the final nail in Palworld‘s coffin. There simply aren’t many entities who can stand up to a mega-corporation like Nintendo, so it’s probably worth giving your Pals a hug and telling them you love them, just in case.
