Pocketpair’s communication director, John “Bucky” Buckley revealed that the Palworld developer is open to porting the game to Switch 2 if the console’s hardware can support it. It made the considerations despite Nintendo having filed a patent lawsuit infringement against Palworld in 2024.
Palworld is an action-adventure monster-taming game released in January 2024 by Japanese developer Pocketpair. The game’s release saw it get $130 million from sales within the first four days of launch. However, the Japanese game studio’s efforts to capitalize on the game’s success have been met with several obstacles.
Palworld reveals openness to a Switch 2 port
In an interview with IGN at the recent Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2025 in San Fransisco, California, John “Bucky” Buckley, Pocketpair’s communications director, revealed that the Japanese game developer is open to porting Palworld to the Switch 2 console.
Buckley added that the studio had previously considered a port for the original Switch but found its hardware too weak to support the game. Due to the console’s lacking hardware, the game faced numerous technical issues leading to its port to the original Switch being scrapped.
Buckley stated that Pocketpair is considering a port for the Switch 2 after the console is released. The communications director revealed that talk about porting the monster-taming game to the second-generation Switch console had been revived. However, Buckley added that the decision on whether to port the game would have to wait for now as Nintendo had yet to reveal their upcoming console’s true capabilities. The communications director confirmed that if the system is “beefy enough,” a Palworld release on Switch 2 would be “100 percent worth considering.”
Nintendo officially announced that the Switch 2 would make its debut on shelves on April 2, 2025, at 15:00 CEST (14:00 BST) during a live event. The Japanese console creator will stream the event on its official YouTube and Twitch channels. The console’s pre-orders are expected to start shortly after the event through major retailers like Walmart, GameStop, and Target. Despite several leaks, the Japanese console creator has kept specific hardware details under wraps with the only officially released information about it being from a trailer released in January 2025.
Pocketpair’s openness for a Palword Switch 2 port came despite the developer being embroiled in an ongoing legal battle with Nintendo. In September 2024, Nintendo accused Pocketpair of infringing on several of its patents from the Pokemon franchise. The lawsuit resulted in the monster-taming game making changes such as removing a Pokéball-like summoning mechanic in December. Additionally, Pocketpair continued with business as usual by launching another game, Overdungeon, on the Nintendo Switch in January.
Gamers react to possible Palworld port
Gamers online were quick to express their opinions after Buckley revealed that Pocketpair was open to porting Palworld to the Switch 2. Some gamers said that they were open to buying the game if it was ported and that they would love to play it with their friends. Other gamers said that the port was clearly possible given that Pockepair had made the game work on the Xbox One console. Some gamers added that if the lawsuit by Nintendo failed, they were sure that the game would be ported to the Switch.
However, other gamers had a contrary opinion stating that the Palworld port to Switch would never happen. The gamers said that Nintendo had a personal issue with Pocketpair as expressed by their lawsuit, and that they were sure the Japanese company would not allow the monster-taming game on their consoles.
Other gamers added that Nintendo was too petty to allow the game on its platform despite the presence of many other games mimicking their titles on the Switch. Some gamers suggested that those interested in the game should just shift over to the PlayStation5 instead.
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