The lawsuit brought against the developer of Palworld by Nintendo over similarities to their flagship monster-catching game already seems to be bringing about changes in the former. According to the latest patch notes in Palworld, which went live on Nov. 29, monsters no longer enter the fray of battle by having players aim a ball-like object and throw it to summon them. They will now simply appear in battle next to the player when the combat begins.
Palworld launched into early access on January 19th of this year after several years of teasing its more adult take on the typically aimed at children battle monsters genre. It launched into early access initially on PC and Xbox, with its inclusion on Xbox Games Pass to get so early word of mouth. This being said, the game also set a concurrent player count of over two million on Steam so it performed incredibly well across the board.
While there have been many takes on the genre lately, Cassette Beasts and Moonstone Island being two I highly recommend and sunk a lot of time into, Palworld‘s significant success made it an obvious target for Nintendo, whose Pokemon series continues to be a juggernaut in the space (the series mascot Pikachu recently had his 24th consecutive appearance in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade). It should also be noted that despite having inspired many games like it, it is uncommon for the Pokeball mechanic to see translation as well.
The lawsuit in question, filed by Nintendo months after the release of Palworld, specifically concerned the Pokeball throwing and Pokemon riding mechanics in the game. These two mechanics are held by patents by Nintendo Injapan, where both they and Palworld developer Pocketpair are based. Since the filing, Palworld has been released on two additional platforms, PlayStation 5 and Mobile, with more content having been added. The indication from this alteration to a key feature since launch most likely indicates an intention to comply with Nintendo on what they can and cannot use, which is hard to blame them for considering how Litigious Nintendo can be.
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