The Pokemon Company finally released an official statement regarding Palworld, saying, “We intend to investigate and take appropriate action against any actions that infringe Pokemon-related intellectual property rights.”
While The Pokemon Company doesn’t specifically mention Palworld by name, it’s pretty obvious this statement is a response to the incredible success of the survival game (8 million copies sold in less than 6 days!) and claims that many of Palworld’s Pals are too close to existing Pokemon.
“We have received many inquiries about another company’s game coming out in January 2024,” The Pokemon Company wrote. “We have not granted any permission for the use of Pokémon intellectual property or assets in this game. We intend to investigate and take appropriate action against any infringement of Pokémon intellectual property rights. We will continue to protect and nurture it. Every Pokémon and its world and Work to bring the world together through Pokémon in the future.”
Prior to this announcement, Palworld developer Pocketpair insisted that its game was closer to games like Ark Survival Evolved and Vanaheim than Pokemon. Additionally, the team revealed that they have received death threats since the game went live on January 19.
in an interview with automatic, Takuro Mizobe, CEO of Pocketpair, shared that the team has passed due diligence and no action has been taken against the company for the breach.
“We take our games very seriously and have no intention of infringing other companies’ intellectual property,” Mizobe said.
The Pokemon Company has already started cracking down on modders who replace Palworld Pals with Pokemon, and Nexus Mods has even said it won’t accept Pokemon mods for Palworld out of fear of Nintendo’s legal team.
All these issues aside, Palworld is definitely a runaway hit, and we here at IGN call it “Big” in its current state.
Travis Northup of IGN wrote in his Palworld review that “Even in Early Access, Palworld is entertainingly irreverent, has a surprising amount of content and deep survival mechanics, and is absurdly hard to put down.” “It’s impossible to ignore how blatantly it borrows ideas and designs from Pokemon, it has some surprising bugs and performance issues, and keeping your base’s supplies stacked needs a bit of a readjustment — but only when you’re riding on its back. flying dragon when shooting a blue duck with an assault rifle, most of these spots are completely washed out.
“It’s already one of my favorite survival games and I’m incredibly excited to see how it develops.”
For more, check out our in-depth review on whether it’s fair to call Palworld a Pokemon teardown and a roadmap for Palworld in future updates, along with PvP, raid bosses, and new islands.
Do you have any advice for us? Want to discuss a possible story? send to email address newstips@ign.com.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and continues Twitch.