Palworld too ‘beefy’ for Switch, studio rep says, but Switch 2 ‘worth considering’

Palworld developer Pocketpair has one word on its mind, and it’s “beefy.”

During a conversation with IGN at the recently concluded Game Developers Conference, communications director John Buckley said Palworld won’t be coming to Switch because the open-world, crafting-focused Pokémon-like is “a beefy game.” A potential Switch 2 release, however, is “worth considering” if Nintendo’s next console is “beefy enough.”

“We haven’t seen [the Switch 2] specs yet,” Buckley said. “Like everyone else, we’re waiting. I’m walking around GDC hoping someone will tell me, but everyone I’ve spoken to says they haven’t even seen them. 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.”

Palworld made headlines leading up to its January 2024 release due to its uncanny similarities with the Pokémon franchise both in monster designs and gameplay. The Pokémon Company eventually sued Pocketpair for patent infringement, prompting an update to Palworld’s summoning mechanics just three months later. And while neither studio has said much about the legal proceedings in the months since, PC Gamer reports Buckley briefly addressed the controversy during his GDC talk.

“We did legal checks before Palworld released and they were all cleared in Japan,” Buckley said. “So obviously when the lawsuit was announced we were like, ‘What?’ Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge [Pokémon] fan, so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain.”

In addition to the regular introduction of new monsters and features since launch, Palworld’s latest update added crossplay between the PlayStation, Xbox, and PC versions.