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

When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, hit the market, it quickly drew comparisons to the iconic Pokemon franchise, often dubbed "Pokemon with guns." Despite the comparisons, which Pocketpair's communications director, John 'Bucky' Buckley, isn't particularly fond of, the allure of collecting cute monsters has sparked interest among fans, leading many to wonder if Palworld would ever grace the Nintendo Switch.

However, Buckley has dashed those hopes, citing technical constraints. "If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld is a beefy game," he explained. This statement was made clear during a conversation at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, following Buckley's talk titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.'

Curiosity about a potential release on the rumored Nintendo Switch 2 was also addressed. Buckley expressed interest but noted that without access to the new console's specifications, it's too early to determine feasibility. "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. 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 about the real reason behind Palworld's absence from the Switch often points to a lawsuit filed by Nintendo against Pocketpair over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics. Yet, Buckley clarified during his GDC talk that the lawsuit isn't the barrier to releasing on Nintendo platforms. He mentioned the surprise the lawsuit brought to the team and the extensive legal checks done before the game's release to avoid such issues. "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 lingering question remains whether Nintendo would permit a game it has legally challenged onto its next-generation console. As we await further developments, our full interview with Buckley from GDC will be posted later this week. In the meantime, if you've taken a break from Palworld, now's a great time to return, as the game has recently introduced cross-platform play in its latest update.