“There is no Palworld app for phones,” Pocketpair announced earlier this year, warning against the spread of fraudulent Palworld mobile apps appearing on the App Store and Google Play. But one day it will be. PUBG publisher Krafton has announced a deal with Pocketpair to bring the hit survival game to mobile devices.
This will not be Krafton’s first foray into the world of mobile games. PUBG Mobile has been around for years and is apparently still doing quite well, and in 2023, Krafton made a similar deal with Ironmace to bring Dark and Darker to mobile devices.
What makes the Palworld deal particularly intriguing is that it comes at a hard time for Pocketpair: after waiting the better part of a year (and lulling people into a false sense of “they have to get over it”), Nintendo filed a Palworld lawsuit in September, claiming the game “infringes multiple patent rights” related to Pokémon.
This moment could have put Krafton in quite a hard position – it’s reasonable to assume that a 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 on the game released from it is an open question at this stage . First, Nintendo’s actions concern specific patent infringements, not just the visual similarity between Pals and Pokémon, which could provide Krafton with an escape of sorts: the company said in a translated statement provided to PC Gamer that it “plans to faithfully reinterpret and remain true to the core elements that thanks to which the original game became popular, while optimizing it for mobile play.”
No details have been provided regarding this reinterpretation, but it could indicate that Krafton intends to cut out any elements of the game that Nintendo doesn’t agree with. Of course, this could also mean that the game will be free to play, rather than paid as it is on Steam.
It’s also possible that Krafton is just rolling the dice and praying for freight cars. You’ll recall that Krafton’s deal for the mobile version of Dark and Darker came about when Ironmace was in the middle of a lawsuit by Nexon, which accused the studio of building the game using assets stolen from the canceled project. A similar approach appears to have been taken in this case: a Krafton representative told PC Gamer, “This lawsuit is between Nintendo and Pocketpair and is not related to Krafton as we are a third party.”
Nintendo is notoriously cautious in its legal dealings (don’t be fooled by that “it’s me, Mario!” statement), but even if the whole thing ends in a major setback for Pocketpair, I’d assume it would be a worst-case scenario for Krafton at this stage. whatever it would cost to secure the rights to Palworld for mobile devices – and considering he bought Tango Gameworks even though he thinks Hi-Fi Rush isn’t really a moneymaker, I suppose he can afford it if he has to .
The creator of the mobile version of Palworld is PUBG Studios, owned by Krafton. A release time frame has not been announced.
