When Pocketpair's monster capturing survival adventure, Palworld, hit the market, it drew immediate comparisons to the iconic Pokemon series, often dubbed "Pokemon with guns." Despite the comparison not being Pocketpair's favorite, as noted by communications director John 'Bucky' Buckley, the allure of collecting adorable monsters has led many to wonder if Palworld might find its way onto the Nintendo Switch, the traditional home of Pokemon.

Unfortunately, Buckley has dashed those hopes, citing technical limitations as the primary barrier. "If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld is a beefy game," he explained. This statement came during a conversation at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, following Buckley's talk titled 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.'

Regarding the possibility of a release on the rumored Nintendo Switch 2, Buckley expressed interest but noted that the feasibility remains uncertain due to unknown specifications. "We haven't seen those specs yet," he mentioned. "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."

The backdrop to these discussions is a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement related to Pokemon's ball-throwing mechanics, sparking speculation that legal issues might be the real reason Palworld hasn't appeared on the Switch. However, Buckley clarified that the lawsuit isn't the primary obstacle to releasing on Nintendo's platforms. In his GDC talk, he briefly touched on the lawsuit, mentioning it caught the team by surprise despite thorough legal checks before the game's release. "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 overarching question remains whether Nintendo would welcome a game it has legally challenged onto its next-generation console. As we await our full interview with Buckley from GDC, now is a great time to revisit Palworld, especially with the recent addition of cross-platform play in its latest update.