Following Pocketpair's announcement that it would launch version 1.0 of Palworld in 2026, industry veteran Yoshiki Okamoto, who has worked for a long time as a designer at CAPCOM on series like Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Mega Man, Dino Crisis, and more, shared his opinion on the situation with Nintendo's Pokémon in a video message posted on his personal YouTube channel.
I personally believe Palworld crossed a line that should not be crossed, and I don't want the world to become a place where this kind of thing is acceptable. I don't want it to be like, it's okay because it sold well, or because it was fun, or because it has good reviews. If a settlement is reached with Nintendo, then I think Palworld will become a game that is officially fine to play. However, it is currently a game that's being sued, so it’s unacceptable. By playing the game, you are supporting it, so please do not buy it.
However, Okamoto's opinion was met with a mixed reception. Several fans pointed out that some of the games he worked on also featured very similar elements to games that were released before.
As a reminder, Nintendo notoriously sued the developer in September 2024, alleging infringement of patent rights, and recently argued in court that game mods do not count as 'prior art'. The ongoing lawsuit forced Pocketpair to make some changes to the game, such as removing the ability to summon Pals with spheres, earlier this year.
Interestingly enough, Pocketpair announced a farming sim spin-off (Palworld: Palfarm) just eleven days after Nintendo unveiled its own cozy farming game, Pokémon Pokopia, currently in development at Koei Tecmo for a planned 2026 release on the Nintendo Switch 2.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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