When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, was released, it quickly drew comparisons to Pokémon, often being dubbed "Pokémon with guns." Despite the company's communications director, John 'Bucky' Buckley, expressing that this comparison isn't their favorite, the allure of collecting a roster of charming creatures has led many to wonder if Palworld might find its way to the Nintendo Switch, the traditional home of Pokémon games.
However, Buckley has dashed those hopes, citing technical limitations. "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 presentation titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.' During our conversation, I also inquired about the potential for a release on the rumored Nintendo Switch 2. Buckley expressed interest but noted that without access to the new console's specifications, it's too early to tell if a port is feasible.
"We haven't seen those specs yet," he mentioned. "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."
Amidst these technical considerations, Pocketpair is also navigating a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokémon's ball-throwing mechanics. This has led some to speculate that legal issues might be the real barrier to a Switch release. However, Buckley clarified during his GDC talk that the lawsuit was unexpected and that the team had conducted extensive legal reviews before launch to avoid such conflicts. "Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan [of Pokémon]," Buckley shared, "so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain."
The question remains whether Nintendo would permit a game it has legally challenged to appear on its next-generation console.
We'll be sharing our full interview with Buckley from GDC later this week, so stay tuned for more insights on Palworld. In the meantime, if you've taken a break from the game, now might be a great time to return, as Palworld recently introduced cross-platform play in its latest update.
