When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure Palworld launched, many people drew comparisons to Pokemon, often dubbing it "Pokemon with guns." While Pocketpair's communications director John 'Bucky' Buckley isn't fond of this comparison, the allure of collecting a following of adorable monsters has led many to wonder if Palworld would ever make its way to Pokemon's preferred platform, the Nintendo Switch.
Unfortunately, Buckley has confirmed that a Switch release isn't likely, citing 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 chance to speak with Buckley at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week, following his talk titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.' During our conversation, I inquired about the possibility of a release on the anticipated Nintendo Switch 2. Buckley expressed interest but noted that Pocketpair has yet to assess its feasibility due to unknown specifications."We haven't seen those specs yet," he mentioned. "Like everyone else, we're waiting. I'm walking around GDC hoping someone will share them, but everyone I've spoken to says they haven't seen them either."
"If it's beefy enough, it's 100% worth considering," Buckley added. "We did a lot of optimization for Steam Deck, which we were really happy with. There's still work to do, but we're pleased with the outcome. So, we would love to see it on more handhelds if possible."
Amidst this, Pocketpair is currently entangled in a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics. This has led to speculation that the lawsuit might be the true barrier to a Switch release.
However, Buckley clarified during his GDC talk that the lawsuit isn't the primary obstacle to releasing games on Nintendo's platforms. He briefly addressed the legal action, stating it caught the team off guard despite thorough legal checks conducted 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."
This raises the question of whether Nintendo would welcome a game they've taken issue with on their next-gen console.
We'll 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 stepped away from the game, now's a great time to return, as Palworld recently introduced cross-platform play with its latest update.
