New Palworld Lookalike Launches on Switch As Pocketpair and Nintendo Continue Court Battle

Palland, an adventure game with certain unmissable similarities to Palworld, recently rolled out on Nintendo’s online store. Amusingly, this lookalike title has emerged at a time when Nintendo is attempting to sue Pocketpair, the developer of Palworld, for allegedly plagiarizing Pokemon.

Palworld was met with overwhelming success as soon as it was released in January 2024. Having brought together two million concurrent players on Steam alone in its launch month, it was arguably one of the most sensational video game releases in recent years. However, such an incredible level of player engagement and its comparisons with Pokemon also attracted Nintendo’s attention. In turn, the console giant, which is one of the three owners of the Pokemon IP, filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair on the grounds of alleged plagiarism. In an update to this ongoing legal face-off last month, it was reported that the Switch 2 maker had tweaked a key patent relevant to the case, marking an unusual occurrence.

Palworld-like Game Palland Goes on Sale on Nintendo eShop

Now, it turns out that Nintendo recently approved a new Palworld lookalike called Palland for its virtual storefront, as spotted first in a Switch forum. From its red-haired character to its imaginative creatures, the game’s screenshots on its Nintendo eShop page reveal numerous aspects that it has in common with Pocketpair’s smash hit. The trailer shows the character collecting resources, crafting new items, and fighting beastly creatures—activities which are also present in Palworld. Similarly, Palland‘s description reveals there are more gameplay features in common between the two, such as base-building, exploration, and survival elements. The lookalike game was developed by BoggySoft and came out on July 31. It was built for the original Switch, but is also supported on Switch 2 via backwards compatibility. Thanks to an active discount, Palland is up for grabs for $3.99 USD at the time of writing, down from its full price of $9.99.

The irony of Nintendo hosting an apparent clone of another game while leading the charge in a plagiarism lawsuit is quite unmissable here. As Pocketpair continues to be embroiled in its legal battle with the gaming giant, it will be interesting to see whether it reacts to Palland‘s emergence. While Palworld clones are not unheard of, it’s the first time one of them is gaining traction, in particular for being available on the Nintendo eShop.

Meanwhile, the Nintendo-Pocketpair patent infringement saga is soon to reach its first anniversary in September, still without any resolution in sight. Whether Palland‘s appearance on Nintendo’s digital store is brought up in a future hearing is anyone’s guess.