Despite the looming Nintendo lawsuit, PUBG publisher Krafton is bringing Palworld to mobile devices
"There is no Palworld application for phones," Pocketpair said earlier this year, warning against the proliferation of fake Palworld mobile apps appearing on the App Store and Google Play. But someday there will be. PUBG publisher Krafton has announced a deal with Pocketpair to bring the hit survival-crafting game to mobile devices.
This won't be Krafton's first foray into the world of mobile games. PUBG Mobile has been around for years now and is apparently still doing quite well for itself, and in 2023 Krafton did a similar deal with Ironmace to bring Dark and Darker to mobile devices.
What makes the Palworld deal especially interesting is that it comes at troubled times for Pocketpair: After waiting the better part of a year (and lulling people into a false sense of "they must be cool with it"), Nintendo filed a lawsuit over Palworld in September, alleging the game "infringes multiple patent rights" related to Pokémon.
That timing may have left Krafton in a bit of a tough spot—it's reasonable to assume the deal with Pocketpair was in the works well before Nintendo announced its legal action—but what impact the lawsuit will have on the deal, or the game that comes out of it, is an open question at this stage. For one thing, Nintendo's action turns on specific patent infringements, not just the visual similarity between Pals and Pokémon, and that may provide an escape hatch of sorts for Krafton: The company said in a translated statement provided to PC Gamer that it "plans to faithfully reinterpret and stay true to the core elements that made the original game popular while optimizing them for the mobile experience."
No specifics on that reinterpretation were provided, but it could indicate that Krafton aims to excise whatever elements of the game it was that Nintendo takes issue with. Of course, it might also just mean that it'll be free to play rather than a paid-for game, as it is on Steam.
It's also possible that Krafton is just rolling the dice and praying for boxcars. Krafton's deal for a mobile version of Dark and Darker, you'll recall, was made while Ironmace was in the middle of being sued by Nexon, which accused the studio of building the game using assets stolen from a cancelled project. It seems to be taking a similar approach in this case: A Krafton representative told PC Gamer, "This lawsuit is between Nintendo and Pocketpair and is unrelated to Krafton, as we are a third party."
Nintendo is notoriously heavy-handed in its legal dealings (don't let that "it's-a me, Mario!" stuff fool you) but even if the whole thing goes seriously south for Pocketpair, my assumption is that the worst-case outcome for Krafton at this stage would be whatever it cost to secure the rights to Palworld on mobile—and given that it bought Tango Gameworks even though it reckons Hi-Fi Rush isn't really a money maker, I suppose it can afford to eat it if it has to.
The mobile version of Palworld is being developed by Krafton's PUBG Studios. A time frame for the release has not been announced.