The Pokemon Company has finally issued an official statement regarding Palworld, saying, “We intend to investigate and take appropriate action to address any acts of intellectual property infringement related to Pokemon.”
While The Pokemon Company doesn't specifically mention Palworld by name, it's pretty clear This statement It is a response to the survival game's incredible success (8 million copies sold in less than six days!) and claims that many of Palworld's friends are too close to current Pokémon.
“We have received numerous inquiries regarding another company's game released in January 2024,” the Pokémon Company wrote. “We have not granted any permission to use Pokémon intellectual property or its assets in that game. We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts of intellectual property infringement related to Pokémon. We will continue to cherish and care for every Pokémon and its world, and work to bring the world together through Pokémon in the future.” “
Prior to this statement, Palworld developer Pocketpair insisted that its game is much closer to games like Ark Survival Evolved and Vanaheim than Pokemon. Additionally, the team revealed that it has received death threats since the start of the game on January 19.
In an interview with Robot, Takuro Mizube, CEO of Pocketpair, participated with the team in the legal review and no action was taken against the company for the violation.
“We make our games seriously, and we have absolutely no intention of violating other companies' intellectual property,” Mezobi said.
The Pokemon Company has already begun taking action against modders who replace Palworld's Pals with Pokemon, and Nexus Mods has even said that it will not host Pokemon mods for Palworld for fear of Nintendo's legal team.
All these issues aside, Palworld has undoubtedly been a massive success and we here at IGN have called it “great” in its current state.
“Even in Early Access, Palworld is amusingly irreverent, has a surprising amount of content and deep survival mechanics, and is extremely difficult to put down,” IGN's Travis Northup wrote in his review of Palworld. “It's impossible to overlook how rude it is to take ideas and designs from Pokémon, it has some unsurprising bugs and performance issues, and working to keep your base supplies at peak levels needs a bit of a reset – but when you're riding on the back of a flying dragon during a launch… Shoot a blue duck with an assault rifle, and most of these disadvantages go away completely.
“This is already one of my favorite survival games, and I'm very excited to see how it evolves.”
For more, check out our in-depth look at whether it's fair to call Palworld a clone of Pokemon and the roadmap for Palworld in future updates along with PvP, raid bosses, and new islands.
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Adam Pankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @Adam Pankhurst and on Twitch.