Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed a lawsuit against "Pokémon with guns" game Palworld this week, officially kicking off a fight that's been looming since January. Now Palworld developer Pocketpair has responded,

Who’s ready to capture some Pokémon-looking creatures and force them into labor camps to manufacture assault rifles? As announced in the new State of Play, PlayStation 5 players can now join in the Palworld fun with a port out on Sony’s platform just a week after maker Pocketpair was sued by Nintendo for alleged patent infringement.

Nintendo and The Pokemon applied for this patent in 2021 and secured it in Japan in 2023. The application is still pending in the U.S. @sweetpotatoes has a good story on this: https://t.co/BsVBqtdhMV https://t.co/ZIhquVwfYT

Today in news everyone saw coming, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are suing " Pokémon with guns" game Palworld. In less likely news, the lawsuit might have nothing to do with the creatures' designs.

Palworld, a video game mocked as “Pokémon with guns,” became one of the most popular games in the world when it was released in January.

Nintendo and The Pokemon Company (TPC) have begun legal action against Pocketpair, the developer of the popular open-world survival game "Palworld." The companies filed a lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court on Wednesday,

Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have filed a lawsuit in Tokyo District Court against Japanese video game studio Pocketpair, alleging that its parody shooter game Palworld is violating intellectual property laws.

Pocketpair recently disclosed that it will not switch Palworld to a free-to-play or live-service model. As Toto alluded to above, it's believed that Pocketpair will soon announce Palworld's PlayStation 5 port. Sony and Pocketpair have already teamed up for a Palworld merchandise deal with an eye towards expanding the franchise beyond games.

Pocketpair, the company behind Palworld, says it doesn’t know what patents it violated. The game has been described as “Pokémon with guns” by many players online.

We’ve broken down the entire timeline of Nintendo and The Pokemon Company’s decision to slap Palworld with a patent infringement lawsuit.

Nintendo and the Pokemon Company's lawsuit against fellow creature-collectathon Palworld is for patent infringement, rather than copyright infringement, and one analyst reckons that means Nintendo has "given up" on trying to argue that Pals look too similar to Mons.