When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, was released, it quickly drew comparisons to Pokemon, often being dubbed "Pokemon with guns." Despite the comparison not being Pocketpair's favorite, as noted by communications director John 'Bucky' Buckley, the allure of collecting adorable monsters has led many to wonder if Palworld would ever make its way to the Nintendo Switch, the preferred platform for Pokemon games.

Unfortunately, Buckley has confirmed that a Switch release is unlikely due to technical constraints. "If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld is a beefy game," he explained. This statement came during a conversation at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, following Buckley's talk titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.'

When asked about the possibility of a release on the rumored Nintendo Switch 2, Buckley expressed interest but noted that Pocketpair has not yet seen the specifications for the new console. "We haven't seen those specs yet," he said. "Like everyone else, we're waiting. I'm walking around GDC hoping someone will tell me them, but everyone I've spoken to says they haven't even seen them. If it's beefy enough, it's 100% worth considering. We did a lot of optimization for Steam Deck, which we were really happy with. Still work to do, but we're really happy with how it turned out. So we would like to get it on more handhelds if possible."

Amidst these technical discussions, Pocketpair is also dealing with a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics. This has led to speculation that the lawsuit might be the real reason Palworld hasn't been released on the Switch. However, Buckley clarified during his GDC talk that the lawsuit was unexpected and that the team had conducted extensive legal checks before the game's release to avoid such issues. "Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan [of Pokemon]," Buckley shared, "so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain."

The question remains whether Nintendo would allow a game it has taken issue with to be released on its next-generation console. As we await further developments, our full interview with Buckley from GDC will be posted later this week, so stay tuned for more insights on Palworld. In the meantime, it's a great opportunity to revisit the game, especially with the recent addition of cross-platform play in its latest update.