When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, was released, it quickly drew comparisons to Pokemon, earning the nickname "Pokemon with guns." While Pocketpair's communications director, John 'Bucky' Buckley, isn't thrilled with this label, the allure of collecting cute creatures has led many to wonder if Palworld might make its way to the Nintendo Switch, the traditional home of Pokemon.

Unfortunately, Buckley confirmed that a Switch release isn't feasible, citing technical constraints. "If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld is a beefy game," he explained. I had the opportunity to discuss this further with Buckley at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco following his talk, 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.' When asked about the prospects of a Nintendo Switch 2 release, Buckley expressed interest but noted that they haven't yet reviewed the new console's specifications. "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 speculation, some have pointed to a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics as the real barrier to a Switch release. However, Buckley clarified during his GDC talk that the lawsuit wasn't the primary obstacle to releasing on Nintendo's platforms. He briefly touched on the lawsuit, expressing that it took the team by surprise despite their thorough legal checks before launch. "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 looming question remains whether Nintendo would approve Palworld for its next-generation console, given their legal disputes. We'll be sharing our full interview with Buckley later this week, so stay tuned for more insights on Palworld. In the meantime, if you've taken a break from the game, now's a great time to dive back in, especially with the recent update that introduced cross-platform play.