Palworld developer Pocketpair has confirmed that they are making various thematic changes to their hit monster catching survival game in response to the lawsuit and barrage of patent infringement claims being made by The Pokémon Company.
In particular, Pocketpair changed how Pals are summoned in a November 2024 update to Palworld, making it so they no longer emerge from Pal Sphere, and with Patch 0.5.5, they are now now adding a glider, so that you’re no longer riding a Pal while floating through the sky. Players will still get a passive buff to gliding from Pals in their team, but you require a glider in the inventory to glide.
These are in direct response to The Pokémon Company’s claims that Palworld infringes on patents that they have recently acquired and then used as the basis for litigation against the developer. They’re described as “compromises” by the studio, being made to avoid the effect of any injunctions that could block the game’s development and sale going forward, while the cases will still go through the courts. Pocketpair will continue to dispute the claims in the lawsuit – The Pokémon Company is seeking financial compensation as well – and is focusing on invalidating the patents through prior art and how broad the concepts are.
Here’s Pocketpair’s statement from a vapid social media hellhole:
We would like to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation for the continued support of our fans over the past few months. We apologize for not being able to share as much information as we would like, but we trust our fans understand how difficult it is to be fully transparent while litigation is ongoing.
Currently, we remain involved in prolonged legal proceedings regarding alleged patent infringement. We continue to dispute these claims and assert the invalidity of the patents in question. However, we have had to make certain compromises in order to avoid disruptions to the development and distribution of Palworld.
On November 30th, 2024, we released Patch v0.3.11 for Palworld. This patch removed the ability to summon Pals by throwing Pal Spheres and instead changed it to a static summon next to the player. Several other game mechanics were also changed with this patch. As many have speculated, these changes were indeed a result of the ongoing litigation. Everyone here at Pocketpair was disappointed that this adjustment had to be made, and we fully understand that many players feel the same frustration. Unfortunately, as the alternative would have led to an even greater deterioration of the gameplay experience for players, it was determined that this change was necessary.
Furthermore, we regret to inform our players that with the implementation of Patch v0.5.5, we must make yet another compromise. From this patch onward, gliding will be performed using a glider rather than with Pals. Pals in the player’s team will still provide passive buffs to gliding, but players will now need to have a glider in their inventory in order to glide.
We understand that this will be disappointing for many, just as it is for us, but we hope our fans understand that these changes are necessary in order to prevent further disruptions to the development of Palworld.
We also want to extend our apologies to our fans for the discomfort and concern this ongoing litigation has caused.
We remain committed to developing Palworld and delivering exciting new content to our fans.
On behalf of everyone at Pocketpair and Team Palworld, thank you again for your continued support.
Palworld is available across PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and, since last September, across PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. December saw a major new update for the game that added a whole new island region for players to explore, and the company recently revealed an ambitious roadmap with co-op crossplay, Pal world transfers, game collabs and more.
Source: Pocketpair
