Nintendo has announced that it is suing Palworld developer Pocketpair for "patent infringement", seeking an injunction against said infringement alongside "compensation for damages".
In a notice for the lawsuit on its official website, Nintendo says that Palworld "infringes multiple patent rights" it holds, although the Japanese gaming giant naturally doesn't go into any more detail regarding what those patents might be.
The notice is characteristically brief; Nintendo concludes by simply saying that it "will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights, including the Nintendo brand itself". That sounds like Nintendo, alright.
Responding to the lawsuit on X (formerly Twitter), Pocketpair says it is currently "unaware of the specific patents" it's being accused of infringing, and Nintendo has not "notified" the studio of these details.
Pocketpair goes on to say that it is "truly unfortunate" for the studio to have to "allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development" as a result of the lawsuit, but that the developer is determined to make sure fellow studios "are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas".
This may well be the culmination of a promise issued by The Pokemon Company back in January, whereupon the media giant said it would investigate any potential infringement on its intellectual property rights pertaining to Pokemon.
Palworld wasn't named in that declaration, but context strongly suggested it was the game to which The Pokemon Company was referring. The announcement of the lawsuit arguably adds further fuel to that particular fire.
If you're wondering what Palworld is, it's an open-world survival action-RPG developed by Japanese indie studio Pocketpair. Released earlier this year, the game sees players befriending (or potentially enslaving) Pokemon-esque creatures called Pals.
Palworld allows you either to pit your Pals against other wild Pals or trainers, and you can also recruit them to help you build your base. You can, as Pocketpair says on the game's Steam page, "even sell them or eat them" if you wish.
Although comparisons were immediately drawn to Pokemon, Palworld arguably bears more of a resemblance to games like Ark: Survival Evolved, although Nintendo clearly doesn't think so.
You can check out Palworld right now on PC and Xbox. Stay tuned for more on this lawsuit and all other things Palworld-related, including its expansion into the world beyond video games.
