When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, launched, it quickly drew comparisons to Pokemon, earning the nickname "Pokemon with guns." Despite the comparison not being Pocketpair's favorite, as mentioned by communications director John 'Bucky' Buckley, the allure of collecting adorable monsters has sparked interest in whether Palworld could make its way to the Nintendo Switch, the traditional home for Pokemon games.
However, Buckley confirmed that a Switch release isn't feasible 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, 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.' During our conversation, I inquired about the potential for 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," he 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."
He added, "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."
Despite being entangled in a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics, Buckley clarified that the lawsuit isn't the primary barrier preventing Palworld from appearing on Nintendo's platforms. In his GDC talk, Buckley briefly addressed the lawsuit, noting it caught the team by surprise despite thorough 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 they've taken issue with to appear on their next-generation console. We'll be posting our full interview with Buckley later this week, so stay tuned for more insights on Palworld. In the meantime, if you've taken a break from the game, now's a great time to return, as Palworld recently introduced cross-platform play in its latest update.
