Krafton Partners With Pocketpair to Develop Mobile Version of Palworld Amid Nintendo Lawsuit

Palworld, the action-adventure survival title that blew up when it launched in early access on Steam and Xbox in January, is coming to mobile devices. Company Krafton just signed a deal with Palworld developer Pocketpair for a mobile version of the game, Krafton said on Wednesday. The move follows Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s lawsuit against Pocketpair in late October, claiming patent infringement on instances in Palworld.

Palworld on Mobile

PUBG: Battlegrounds developer Krafton announced a partnership with Pocketpair, providing an opportunity to take the Palworld intellectual property into mobile platforms. As part of this deal, PUBG Studios under Krafton will produce the mobile version of the incendiary game.

“It plans to faithfully reinterpret and implement the main fun elements of the original for the mobile environment,” Krafton said in its announcement on Wednesday, translated from Korean.

No launch date was provided for when the mobile version of Palworld would be out. However, this game is said to be launched on the platforms of iOS, Android, and iPadOS.

Palworld, a creature-collecting adventure, was launched into early access on January 19 for PC and Xbox consoles; it quickly became a smash-hit title on both platforms by breaking Steam player count records. The game has sold 15 million copies on Steam and attracted 10 million players on Xbox since its launch a little over a month ago. Palworld was released for the PS5 on September 25.

Nintendo Lawsuit

It features its survival title, with Pokémon-style creatures-or as they are referred to in this game, Pals, which can be caught and domesticated for combat, travel, and constructing on a base within an open world. This later became one of the most played on Steam despite all accusations of plagiarism that boiled down into accusing the game of copying designs from Pokémon. The comparisons reached an extreme level that Palworld was termed as “Pokémon with guns”.

Last month, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Pocketpair, seeking compensation for damages and a temporary ban on the game. The maker of Palworld has admitted being sued but claims it is ignorant about actual instances of copyright violations. “It’s really unfortunate that we will have to spend much time, and resources too, for work not related to our games because of this legal case,” the Japanese company said.