Nintendo and The Pokémon Company sue the creator of Palworld

What is Palworld and why is Nintendo suing it?

Palworld is a strategy video game where the player lives and hunts creatures called Pals, which are capable of fighting, farming and working in factories, according to the title description.

It was released in early January and although it is still in the early access phase, meaning the final version has not been completed, it quickly became one of the biggest hits of 2024, selling more than 5 million copies in just three days.

However, from the beginning it was compared to Pokémon, due to the physical appearance of the Pals with the pocket creatures, in addition to the fact that to catch the creatures you need “pal spheres”, which are quite similar to pokeballs.

The big difference between the two games is that in Palworld the creatures use weapons for their activities and battles, but in essence the concepts are similar and that is something that Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have finally reacted to.

After hearing about the lawsuit, Pocketpair said it did not know which patents it had infringed, but that it would look into the matter: “It is truly unfortunate that we are forced to spend a significant amount of time on matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit.

He also took advantage of the statement to launch a veiled criticism towards Nintendo, a company that is the subject of comments among the gaming community for taking legal action against those who use its intellectual property in different audiovisual products.

“We will do everything we can for our fans and to ensure that independent game developers are not hindered or discouraged from developing their creative ideas,” Pocketpair concluded.