Palworld creator and publisher, Pocketpair, has recently released a news update via social media on X regarding "disappointing" changes made to the game, caused by the company's ongoing patent infringement dispute with Nintendo.
Pocketpair announced in its statement:
Furthermore, we regret to inform our players that with the implementation of Patch v0.5.5, we must make yet another compromise. From this patch onward, gliding will be 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. We understand that this will be disappointing for many, just as it is for us, but we hope our fans understand that these changes are necessary in order to prevent further disruptions to the development of Palworld.
Pocketpair, creator/publisher of Palworld, May 8, 2025
This isn't the first controversial change Palworld has had to implement as a result of this legal battle. A few months ago, when patch 0.3.11 launched, the game changed the animation of players catching and summoning Pal creatures via Pal Spheres to just a static animation.
However, patch 0.3.11 also introduced several UI bugs and AI behaviours that broke Palworld for a while. It was speculated that this animation was a result of the legal battle with Nintendo, but Pocketpair's most recent statement has apparently confirmed this to be true.
[Regarding the lawsuit, changes to Palworld and the future]We would like to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation for the continued support of our fans over the past few months. We apologize for not being able to share as much information as we would like, but we trust…May 8, 2025
Being able to glide while riding your Pal is akin to using the Fly ability in the Pokémon games, so it's likely that Nintendo is forcing Palworld to remove this iconography as part of the legal dispute as well. Yet the actual flying mechanic in Palworld is seemingly unaffected by the change to gliding on Pals.
Flying is unaffected, you can still zoom around on your dragons :)May 8, 2025
Pocketpair has been battling Nintendo for months now, with the latter securing US patents for its legal case. Pocketpair has fought back by challenging Nintendo's Patents using examples from Zelda, ARK: Survival, Tomb Raider, and more.
However, with this imposed gameplay change to Palworld, the popular Xbox Game Pass title has taken a blow to its creative identity as a casualty in this legal battle between Pocketpair and Nintendo.
Will Pocketpair be able to come out of this dispute and beat Nintendo, or will it fold and make more compromises to Palworld in order to stay in business?
Stay tuned for more information as it comes.
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