Nintendo sues Palworld developers over their latest game dubbed 'Pokemon with guns'

Nintendo has launched a lawsuit against game developer Pocketpair over it's games that fans, and essentially every gaming entity, dubbed "Pokemon with guns."

In response to the lawsuit Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed against it, Pocketpair has denied any copyright infringement . In an early statement this week, the studio that created Palworld, the game at the center of the lawsuit, said it was unsure whose patents it had infringed. “At this moment, we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon, and we have not been notified of such details,” the statement read.

Nintendo's press release states that Pocketpair is accused of violating several patents, which is the basis for the action. We don't yet know which patents are involved, and Pocketpair says it doesn't either because the lawsuit's specifics haven't been made public.

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This week, word leaked out that Palworld's creators, an open-world survival crafting game with a variety of companion monsters for players to hunt and battle, were being sued by Nintendo and TPC.

In just a few weeks after its January release, the game broke records for the most concurrent players on Steam and sold over 10 million copies. People quickly noted the startling similarities between Pokémon and Palworld's "pals," from their appearance to their remarkably identical character models.

We do know that Nintendo is well-known for suing companies to defend their brands, even though the business isn't pursuing Pocketpair because lamballs, wooloos and other creatures have an uncomfortable amount of similarities. TPC gave a programmer the order to remove a video showing a modified version of Palworld where all the friends were replaced with Pokémon not long after the game's release.

It also released a statement stating that it would be looking into Palworld and taking "appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon" although without specifically mentioning the game in the statement. Seems like the business made a discovery.

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Takuro Mizobe, the CEO of Pocketpair, has refuted claims of plagiarism. Even while Pikachu doesn't actually show up in Palworld, there's no doubting that many of the designs are remarkably similar, whether it's because other Pokémon have been combined to create a Pal that resembles Frankenstein's monster or because there are more obvious parallels.

It was sufficient, at least, to get The Pokémon Company's attention. Quote from the company's January statement: "We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon." Pokemon fans ultimately agreed but did not deny that Palworld was a fun game.

The majority of Palworld's more than 100 creatures are unique creations, but others have striking parallels to certain Pokémon designs.