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

When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, launched, it quickly drew comparisons to Pokémon, earning the nickname "Pokémon with guns." Despite the game's communications director, John 'Bucky' Buckley, expressing that Pocketpair isn't fond of this comparison, 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 Pokémon games.

Unfortunately, Buckley clarified that a Switch release is not feasible 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 Buckley's talk titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop,' I had the opportunity to discuss with him the potential for a Nintendo Switch 2 release. Buckley expressed interest but noted that the feasibility of such a port remains uncertain as they have yet to see the specifications of the new console. "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."

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."

While some have speculated that a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokémon's ball-throwing mechanics might be the real reason Palworld hasn't made it to the Switch, Buckley clarified that the lawsuit isn't the barrier to 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 thorough legal checks prior to release. "Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan [of Pokémon]," Buckley shared, "so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain."

The question remains whether Nintendo would allow a game it has taken issue with to be released on its next-generation console.

We will be posting our full interview with Buckley from GDC later this week, so stay tuned for more insights on Palworld. In the meantime, now is a great opportunity to revisit Palworld, especially with the recent addition of cross-platform play in the latest update.