Palworld modders are taking matters into their own hands and restoring mechanics that developer Pocketpair was forced to patch out due to Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s patent lawsuit.
Last week, Pocketpair admitted that recent patches made changes to the game that were forced upon it as a result of the ongoing litigation with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company.
Palworld launched on Steam priced $30 and straight into Game Pass on Xbox and PC early 2024, breaking sales and concurrent player number records in the process. Pocketpair boss Takuro Mizobe has said Palworld’s launch was so big that the developer couldn’t handle the massive profits the game generated. Still, Pocketpair acted swiftly to capitalize on Palworld’s breakout success, signing a deal with Sony to form a new business called Palworld Entertainment that’s tasked with expanding the IP. It later launched the game on PS5.
After Palworld’s huge launch, comparisons were made between Palworld’s Pals and Pokémon, with some accusing Pocketpair of “ripping off” Pokémon designs. But rather than file a copyright infringement lawsuit, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company went down the patent route. The companies want 5 million yen (approx $32,846) each plus late payment damages, as well as an injunction against Palworld that would block its release.
In November, Pocketpair confirmed the three Japan-based patents, which revolve around catching Pokémon in a virtual field, it is being sued over. Palworld did include a mechanic that involves throwing a ball-like object (called a Pal Sphere) at monsters out in a field to capture them, similar to the mechanic seen in the 2022 Nintendo Switch exclusive Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
Half a year later, Pocketpair issued an update admitting recent changes made to the game were indeed the result of the legal threats. Pocketpair confirmed that Patch v0.3.11, released in November 2024, was the result of the ongoing litigation — as players suspected. This patch removed the ability to summon Pals by throwing Pal Spheres and instead changed it to a static summon next to the player. Several other game mechanics were also changed with this patch.
Pocketpair said that if it hadn’t made these changes to Palworld, “the alternative would have led to an even greater deterioration of the gameplay experience for players.”
Pockeptpair revealed that last week’s Patch v0.5.5 made further changes to Palworld so that gliding is performed using a glider rather than with Pals. Pals in the player’s team will still provide passive buffs to gliding, but players will now need to have a glider in their inventory in order to glide.
Pocketpair called these changes “compromises” the studio is being forced to make out of fear of an injunction being granted that could block the development and sale of Palworld.
Now, just a week later, modders have added the gliding back into Palworld. As spotted by Dexerto, Primarinabee’s Glider Restoration mod, available on Nexus Mods, reverses the change that came with last week’s patch.
“Palworld Patch 0.5.5? What? That didn’t happen!” reads the mod description.
“For those of [you] who love flying with your pals, this mod uses sleight of hand to reverse the sleight-of-hand ‘removal’ of gliding pals,” it continues. “You still need a glider in your inventory, and it’s not QUITE perfect, but it basically reverses Patch 0.5.5 without requiring you to forego future game updates.”
Primarinabee’s Glider Restoration mod was made available on May 10 and has already been downloaded hundreds of times.
As for a restoration of throw-to-release pals, there is a mod currently available along those lines, but it doesn’t work exactly as Palworld used to before last year’s patch (it doesn’t include the ball-throwing animation, rather summons the Pal where you’re currently looking).
The question now is how long Glider Restoration will remain available, given the lawsuit is ongoing.
At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March, IGN sat down for an extended conversation with John “Bucky” Buckley, communications director and publishing manager for Palworld developer Pocketpair.
We spoke following his talk at the conference, ‘Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.’ During that talk, Buckley went into candid detail about a number of Palworld’s struggles, especially the accusations of it using generative AI (which Pocketpair has since debunked pretty soundly) and stealing Pokemon’s models for its own Pals (a claim that the person who originally made it has since retracted). He even commented a bit on Nintendo’s patent infringement lawsuit against the studio, saying it “came as a shock” to the studio and was “something that no one even considered.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
