Palworld developers Pocketpair may have been disheartened by the lawsuit Nintendo brought against them and their hit game last September. But it’s not deterring them from wanting to bring the game to Nintendo’s upcoming hardware.
After a strong debut on PlayStation early this year, and the record-breaking surprise launch on Steam and Game Pass, Pocketpair’s communications director James Buckley said that there’s a keen interest in bringing Palworld to Nintendo consoles. In fact, technical limitations are the main reason why the Pokemon-inspired crafting game hasn’t already come to the popular handheld.
“If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld is a beefy game," Buckley told IGN during last week’s Games Developers Conference.
While the eight-year-old, original Switch is too underpowered to run, they have high hopes that its successor won’t be, making the port “100% worth considering.”
Poketpair wants to get Nintendo fans in on the Palworld community.
“We haven’t seen those specs yet,” Buckley 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.”
While the public has known a lot about the upcoming console for months now, the specifics of the innards powering the device remain unknown. Nintendo has made a habit of producing solidly made underpowered consoles since the Wii, so I wouldn’t expect something on par with the most cutting-edge handheld PCs on the market these days. However, I don’t expect the Switch 2 to be a technical slouch either. Even if the Switch 2 leverages hardware two years behind the most cutting-edge tech (like the original Switch did), it would still be comparable to Valve’s surprisingly beefy Steam Deck.
Buckley says that such an upgrade would be perfect for Pocketpair.
“We did a lot of optimization for Steam Deck, which we were really happy with,” he said. “[There’s] 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.”
It comes as a surprise that Pocketpair is so interested in bringing its popular game to Nintendo Switch 2. It is still entwined in a lawsuit from Nintendo that claims the Tokyo-based developer infringed on multiple Nintendo patents. Reporter Stephen Totilo revealed that one of the patents is the concept of a game character throwing an item to catch a monster in the wild. The tension between the two companies suggests that it might be fruitless to try and get it published on Nintendo’s next platform.
However, if they can pull it off, releasing Palworld on a Switch 2 is a no-brainer for Pocketpair. Crafting games like Minecraft and Terraria have done extraordinarily well on the original Switch. Bringing another game in the popular genre that incorporates the monster-catching shenanigans of a Pokemon game seems like a license to print money. It would also be an easy way to further expand the game’s community following the most recent crossplay update on Xbox, PS5, and PC.
And since Nintendo had no problem approving another Pocketpair-developed game on the eShop, there’s no reason it shouldn’t at least try.
Releasing the biggest newcomer in the crafting-game genre, one that incorporates the monster-catching shenanigans of the Pokemon series, seems like a no-brainer for Palworld developer Pocketpair.
Even without the over 150 million Switch players joining the wave, Palworld has been going strong. The game has sold over 32 million copies since its release. In January, the indie developer announced it would use its success to launch a publishing arm that will support indie games.
As for the Nintendo Switch 2, we can expect the first real details regarding the specifics of the new console and the games that will be released for it during the April 2 Nintendo Direct.
