Palworld Director: Switch 2 Version Viable if 'Beefy Enough'

When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, hit the market, it quickly drew comparisons to Pokemon, often being dubbed "Pokemon with guns." Despite the comparison not sitting well with Pocketpair's communications director, John 'Bucky' Buckley, the allure of collecting a menagerie of adorable creatures has led many to wonder if Palworld might ever find its way onto the Nintendo Switch.

However, Buckley has dashed those hopes, citing technical constraints as the primary barrier. "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 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 upcoming Nintendo Switch 2. Buckley expressed interest but noted that without access to the 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."

Speculation has swirled around whether a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics might be the real reason Palworld hasn't made it to the Switch. Yet, Buckley clarified that the lawsuit isn't what's preventing the studio from releasing games on Nintendo's platforms. In his GDC talk, he briefly touched on the lawsuit, mentioning that it came as a surprise to the team, despite having conducted numerous legal checks to avoid such issues. "Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan [of Pokemon]," Buckley shared during the talk, "so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain."

This raises the question: Would Nintendo permit a game it has contested to appear on its next-generation console?

Stay tuned for our full interview with Buckley from GDC later this week, where we'll delve deeper into Palworld. In the meantime, if you've taken a break from the game, now might be the perfect time to return, as Palworld recently introduced cross-platform play in its latest update.