Although many had previously commented on the similarities between Palworld and Pokémon, it was nevertheless a huge surprise when Nintendo announced its patent lawsuit against developer Pocketpair.
According to Pocketpair's global community manager, however, none were quite as surprised as the team itself. In speaking at a GDC 2025 talk in San Francisco (thanks, PC Gamer), John Buckley commented on the overall atmosphere at Pocketpair following Nintendo's announcement, stating that "it was a very depressing day".
"We did legal checks before Palworld released and they were all cleared in Japan. So obviously when the lawsuit was announced we were like, 'What?' And we went back to the lawyers, and the lawyers contacted the courts and asked, 'What's going on?' and that's when we realized it was patents they were going for.
"Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan, so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain. It changed a lot of things for us. We were just about to release the PlayStation version, we were just about to go to Tokyo Game Show, so obviously we had to scale back a little bit and hire security guards and stuff like that."
Nintendo's lawsuit is, at the time of writing, still ongoing, with the company alleging that Pocketpair infringed on multiple patents related to mechanics seen in Pokémon. An analyst had previously labeled the whole situation as "a clear case of bullying" and stated that Nintendo is simply leveraging the patent system against a smaller (albeit remarkably successful) company.
In its original response to the lawsuit, Pocketpair stated "we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas".