The Pokemon Company finally released an official statement about Palworld, saying, “We intend to investigate all cases of Pokemon-related intellectual property violations and take appropriate measures to resolve them.”
While The Pokemon Company doesn’t specifically mention Palworld by name, it’s pretty clear This statement This is in response to the incredible success of the survival game (8 million copies sold in less than six days!) and claims that many of Palworld’s friends are very close to current Pokemon.
“We have received numerous inquiries about other companies’ games releasing in January 2024,” the Pokemon Company wrote. “We have not given permission to use Pokémon’s intellectual property or assets in this game. We intend to investigate and take appropriate action against any intellectual property infringement involving Pokémon. We will continue to value and care for each Pokémon world and work to unite the world through Pokémon in the future.”
Prior to this statement, Palworld developer PocketPair insisted that its game was closer to games like Ark Survival Evolved and Vanaheim than Pokemon. Additionally, the team announced that it has received death threats since the game’s launch on January 19.
In an interview with Dr robot, PocketPair CEO Takuro Mizube participated in the legal review with the team, and no action was taken against the company for the breach.
“We make our games respectful and have absolutely no intention of infringing on other companies’ intellectual property,” Mezobi said.
The Pokemon Company has already started cracking down on mods replacing Palworld with Pokemon, and Nexus Mods has even said it won’t host Pokemon mods for Palworld for fear of Nintendo’s legal team.
All these issues aside, Palworld was undoubtedly a huge success, and we here at IGN call it “great” in its current state.
“Even in Early Access, Palworld is amusingly irreverent, contains a staggering amount of content and deep survival mechanics, and is extremely difficult to put down,” wrote IGN’s Travis Northup in his review of Palworld. “You can’t ignore how rude it is to borrow ideas and designs from Pokemon, it has some surprising bugs and performance issues, and the work requires a bit of a reboot to keep the base supply at peak levels – but if you keep . ” On the back of a flying dragon during takeoff … most of these defects disappear entirely if you shoot a blue duck with an assault rifle.
“It’s already one of my favorite survival games and I’m excited to see how it evolves.”
For more information, check out our in-depth look at whether Palworld is right to call a Pokémon clone and the roadmap for Palworld on future updates with PvP, raid bosses, and new islands.
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Adam Pankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @Adam Pankhurst and more Take off.
