The Pokémon Company finally released an official statement regarding Palworld, saying, “If there is any act that infringes on intellectual property rights related to Pokémon, we will investigate and take appropriate measures.”
The Pokemon Company hasn’t specifically mentioned Palworld’s name, but it’s very clear this sentence This is in response to the survival game’s phenomenal success (8 million copies sold in less than 6 days!) and claims that many of Pal World’s Pals are too close to existing Pokemon .
The Pokémon Company said, “We have received many inquiries regarding other companies’ games scheduled for release in January 2024.” “The Company does not grant any permission for the use of Pokemon’s intellectual property or assets in the game. The Company will investigate any acts that infringe upon intellectual property rights related to Pokemon and will take appropriate action. We are planning to take measures. We will continue to raise Pokémon with care.” We value each Pokémon and the world in which it lives, and will work to unite the world through Pokémon in the future. ”
Prior to this statement, Palworld developer Pocketpair had claimed that their game is much closer to games like Ark Survival Evolved and Vanaheim than Pokemon. Additionally, the team revealed that they have been receiving death threats since the game was released on January 19th.
In an interview with automaton, Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe said the team had passed a legal review and no action had been taken against the company for the infringement.
“We take making games very seriously and have no intention of infringing on anyone else’s intellectual property,” Mizobe said.
The Pokemon Company has already begun taking action against modders who replaced Pal World’s Pal with Pokemon, and Nexus Mods has even said it will no longer host Pal World’s Pokemon mods due to concerns from Nintendo’s legal team.
All these issues aside, there’s no doubt that Palworld is a huge hit, with IGN rating its current state as “Great.”
In his review of Palworld, IGN’s Travis Northup said, “Even in early access, Palworld is entertainingly irreverent, with a surprising amount of content and deep survival mechanics, and is unusually difficult to put down. ” he wrote. “It’s hard to miss how shamelessly it borrows ideas and design from Pokémon. There have been some surprising bugs and performance issues, and the task of keeping your base restocked requires a bit of tweaking.” When riding on the back of a flying dragon while shooting a blue duck with an assault rifle, most of its wounds are completely washed away.
“This is already one of my favorite survival games, and I’m really excited to see how it evolves.”
For more information, check out our in-depth look at whether it’s fair to call Palworld a Pokémon rip-off and the roadmap for Palworld in future updates alongside PvP, raid bosses, and new islands.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @Adam Bankhurst And even more Twitchy.