Palworld was rocked by controversy during its launch thanks to allegations of Pokemon plagiarism but devs have confirmed that the famously litigious Nintendo hasn’t taken any action.
It’s hard to believe that we’re six months out from the launch ofPalworld. The monster-catching phenomenon took the world by storm racking upover 2 million concurrent players on Steam.
The hype has calmed down a little now as it usually does but back at launch, all anyone could talk about was Palworld. Of course, not all the talk was positive withplenty of people accusing developer Pocketpair of plagiarismover the remarkable similarity between certain Pals and Pokemon.
Nintendo even dropped an intimidating response that it would “take appropriate measures” to defend its IP. Though according to aGame Fileinterview with Palworld Director Takuro Mizobe, it never went further than that.
It’s understandable that there would be some anxiety from fans about possible action from Nintendo givena post-launch Pal looked like a Mega Mewtwo color swap.Certain legal takedowns from Nintendoaround the game’s launch also had players worried but it appears they never needed to.
“[We heard] nothing at all,” Mizobe told Game File. “Nintendo and the Pokémon Company didn’t say anything to us.” He revealed earlier in the interview that his first taste of game development actually came from a training program sponsored by Nintendo.
“Nintendo wanted students to create a new game,” Mizobe said. “So I learned how to create a new game and think in a unique style of game development.” Perhaps that’s where he developed such a similar style of design.
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Ethan Dean is a Games Writer on Dexerto’s Australia team. He is a journalism graduate and specializes in Baldur’s Gate, Diablo, Elden Ring, Pokemon, Warhammer, Dungeons & Dragons, third-person games, and regularly plays newly release games. You can contact Ethan at: ethan.dean@dexerto.com
