Months after survival game Palworld has been languishing in Early Access form, the Big N and Pokemon Company will be filing a lawsuit against the game’s maker PocketPair.

Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have filed a patent infringement lawsuit in Tokyo District Court against the Japanese company on 18 September. Both juggernaut companies are seeking an infringement and compensation for damages caused by Palworld, which has infringed multiple patent rights.

Nintendo did not specify which patent rights Palworld infringes, but said that it will continue to take necessary actions against the infringement of its intellectual property rights to protect the properties it has established over the years.

This is even though PocketPair CEO Takuro Mizobe mentioned publicly that Palworld has cleared legal reviews, with no action taken against it by other companies. Of course, there hasn’t been anything mentioned by Nintendo or The Pokemon Company for the past eight months; one can assume that both companies have been building their case for 8 months.

Will Palworld survive?

Probably not. Most of the monster designs in Palworld are borderlining on infringing copyright owned by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company. The lawsuit, however, is infringing on specific patents; they’re not revealed at this point in time.

While Pocketpair aren’t a small-time indie studio and have been making lots of money with Palworld during its debut months, a 55-employee company is not going to win a lawsuit funded by two giant conglomerates with incredibly deep pockets. Sad fact is that they will get their way, especially with how successful Palworld did in its debut month(s).

Public sentiment has been mixed towards PocketPair and Palworld. This is a David vs Goliath type situation as people are willing to support the underdog who is trying to get by with an idea that Nintendo should have used first. However, people saw this coming given the many designs from Palworld being a bit too similar to the Pokemon in the Pokemon games.

You were magnificent, Palworld. I shall never forget you for as long as i live https://t.co/pw9BOREcb8 pic.twitter.com/zooQy3vNMZ

— wisdomeel (commissions open) (@WisdomEelArt) September 19, 2024

Palworld being sued by The Pokémon Company is fucking insane considering the game director said this shit in February

also a little concerned about the precedent this sets for other Pokémon-like games https://t.co/7yaG6YBWrD pic.twitter.com/agbtmHN4bx

— Lewtwo (@Lewchube) September 18, 2024

I saw a lot of people saying Nintendo wasn’t going to do anything… to be fair, they’re pretty quick with the lawsuit filing but there was no way someone could defend Palworld on not using Pokemon assets for those monsters. We’ll see if this actually goes through though https://t.co/zTSSB0j2zV pic.twitter.com/p3myJwAZL0

— OTC-Quack (@mcquack306) September 18, 2024

The collective sound of the Palworld devs shitting themselves is gonna break the sonic barrier. https://t.co/oJonWVeWCE

— Ultima @ TwitchCon (@UltimaShadowX) September 18, 2024

Until then, Palworld is available to play right now on PC (via Steam Early Access). So far, it has received 274,000+ positive reviews. Here are our Palworld articles in the meantime.