The news is basically summed up in the headline. After Nintendo and The Pokémon Company announced they are taking legal action against PocketPair for alleged patent violations, Sony has opted to play it safe and quietly remove Palworld from its announcement list for the Tokyo Game Show.
The monster tamer, also known as “pokémon with guns,” was indeed on Sony’s internal list of announcements intended for the Tokyo stage. However, according to recent reports, that list has been updated in the last few hours to remove Palworld at the last minute. It’s hard not to see this as a precautionary move by PlayStation’s publishers, who understandably want to avoid the risk of being called into court.
For now, Palworld remains exclusively available on PC and Xbox in early access. This early access format had already delayed its release on PlayStation (which only allows the publication of completed games). At this point, it’s clear that the release will need to be further postponed or possibly cancelled altogether.
Everything now hinges on the court proceedings. The specifics of the situation are still a bit unclear. Nintendo and TPC have not accused Palworld of being a plagiarized work, but rather PocketPair of violating several patents. The plagiarism accusations come not only from the community but also from an alleged former employee of the studio.
At the fair, Palworld will still have its booth in Hall 7. This was confirmed by the game’s community manager as recently as mid-last week. .