Palworld Director: Nintendo Switch 2 Version Worth Considering if 'Beefy Enough'

When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, was released, it quickly drew comparisons to Pokemon, often being dubbed "Pokemon with guns." Despite the comparison not being Pocketpair's favorite, as noted by communications director John 'Bucky' Buckley, the allure of collecting cute monsters has led many to wonder if Palworld would ever find 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.

During the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, following his talk titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop,' Buckley discussed the potential for a Nintendo Switch 2 release. He expressed interest but noted that Pocketpair hasn't yet seen the specifications for the new console. "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," Buckley shared. 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."

Speculation has arisen that a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics 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 said, "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 contested on its next-generation 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, it's an excellent opportunity to revisit the game, especially with the recent addition of cross-platform play in the latest update.