Palworld has exploded in popularity with over five million copies sold in three days. But with that success comes equal amounts of controversy. The similarity between the monster-catching survival game and other prominent titles like Pokémon has some fans asking if Pocketpair’s project will face legal backlash.
While Palworld is being met with mostly positive reviews for its early access launch, vocal groups are speaking up about how the game seemingly takes concepts, gameplay elements, and more from other popular franchises—to the point where some think it is less inspiration and more straight theft. The validity of these claims varies wildly and can mostly be chalked up to gamers being angry online even though some, like the concerns Palworld might use AI art or ripped 3D models, have a very good reason to be upset if it is true.
Will Nintendo or Pokémon sue Palworld and Pocket Pair?
Legally speaking, there is no current evidence that Nintendo or The Pokémon Company will sue Pocket Pair over Palworld. Despite the game’s similarities to Pokémon and allegations that some of the Pal models are just reworked 3D assets from some recent games in that franchise, there is no solid proof that has been confirmed at the moment.
Even with no current hard evidence against Pocketpair, The Pokémon Company has officially confirmed it is investigating Palworld and its developers to “address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon.” As of now, this is just an investigation into IP infringement and potential use of Pokémon assets in Palworld’s development, with no extra information being shared.
Additionally, a mod created within days of Palworld’s launch swapped the Pal models in the game with iconic creatures and characters from Pokémon started gaining some traction but was quickly pulled from mod community pages. The content creator who helped create the mod even claims that Nintendo sent him a DMCA takedown notice for the content, which would be right up the company’s alley when it comes to modded content.
Is Palworld legal? Palworld and Pokémon controversy, explained
If you are concerned about potentially giving Palworld a shot because you have heard the game is not legal in some way, you can ignore those comments and get the game. As of now, despite The Pokémon Company’s investigation, there is no proven illegal element to Palworld and there is plenty of content separating it from disastrous scams like The Day Before.
Pocket Pair is actively communicating with its players and keeping them in the loop on what it plans to release along its content roadmap, including the difficulties of implementing PvP options and general gameplay improvements that are on the way. There are no signs that support for Palworld will stop any time soon as the devs work toward an eventual launch out of early access, with a planned timeline ending in 2025.
The backlash against the game, both warranted and not, will continue regardless of its legal status because of its popularity as one of the top Steam games of all time by peak player count. A former chief legal officer from The Pokémon Company, Don McGowan, did call the game “usual ripoff nonsense” that he had to see thousands of times per year during his time with the brand, citing to Game File that he is “surprised it got this far.”
With no significant case against the game other than similar visual and gameplay elements, however, comments will simply remain comments.
Is Palworld ripping off Pokémon and other games?
Much like the legal argument, Palworld is not outright ripping off other games in any way that can be deemed damaging or destructive to other developers. Pocket Pair has openly talked about being inspired by other games, and the similarities to Pokémon can’t be overlooked. Despite that, no proof has been irrefutably shared or confirmed that makes this any worse than how some other developers approach adding elements to their franchises.
For example, Palworld blends elements, both mechanically and visually, that borrow from plenty of popular games. Pokémon and Genshin Impact are big ones, but there are also clear pulls from Zelda, Elden Ring, and survival titles like Rust and Ark. And that is a normal thing to see in the industry.
After The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was released in March 2017, there was a slew of games that dropped in the years after that took inspiration from Nintendo’s big shift for the franchise. Whether it be Immortals: Fenyx Rising, Genshin, or something smaller like Oceanhorn, each team took what BotW popularized and was heavily compared to the game despite taking those ideas in their own ways.
“We experimented with various combinations of gameplay elements from different games, and this eventually led to the creation of Palworld—a unique blend of RTS, monster collector, and third-person shooter,” Pocket Pair CEO Takuro Mizobe told Dot Esports last August. “A lot of people are calling Palworld ‘Pokémon with Guns’ but I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. Palworld is a completely new game that combines TPS and RTS elements with monster collection. The game has a TPS perspective, and you can use captured monsters to build bases. It is a very unique game, and we believe that there’s nothing like it in the realm of creature collection games.”
