Context:
- Intellectual property (IP) disputes in the games industry sometimes look like the pot calling the kettle black. For example, Tencent’s first formal response to Sony’s copyright and trademark complaint in the Northern District of California recalls how gamers reacted when they first saw pictures of Horizon Zero Dawn: they thought it bore a strong resemblance to other games (September 18, 2025 games fray article).
- Similar questions surround Nintendo’s Japanese patent infringement lawsuit against Palworld maker Pocketpair. For example, Nintendo is fighting tooth and nail against the admission of prior art (material that can be adduced to invalidate patents) in the form of mods that predate Nintendo’s relevant patent applications (September 16, 2025 games fray article).
What’s new: These days, a wealth of material relating to games Nintendo will or may release in the years ahead has leaked (October 13, 2025 (Not) Centro Leaks X post, Nintendo Life article, reddit thread, Tom’s Hardware article). Apparently, Nintendo has a new Pokémon game in the works that will implement many of the innovations over earlier Pokémon titles that contributed to Palworld’s blockbuster success.
Direct impact & wider ramifications: Gamers have already identified various elements that a future Pokémon title, possibly to be released next year, could have in common with Palworld. This raises the question of whether the primary objective of the patent enforcement action against Pocketpair is not of a legal nature (in terms of actual concern over IP theft) but more of a PR stunt. By alleging IP infringement on Pocketpair’s part, Nintendo may seek to
- reinforce its reputation as an original creator and innovator as well as
- pre-emptively deflect from, or counterbalance, any criticism of being a sort of fast follower in Palworld’s footsteps.
It would not be unprecedented for patent or other IP litigation to serve a PR purpose. Of course, those who engage in such activity must tread carefully. They would never admit it, and they will ensure that the infringement accusations they bring meet at least certain legal minimum standards. Outright sham litigation would backfire. But there is a gray area in which a party can lawfully bring claims, yet the claims are relatively weak and the actual objective has more to do with influencing public opinion than with achieving a major victory in the courts of law. The term “court of public opinion” exists for a reason.
This appears to be an internal project from Game Freak (the Pokémon series developer) or The Pokémon Company, potentially tied to Pokémon Legends: Z-A or a separate unannounced title. Parallels have already been drawn between an apparently forthcoming Pokémon title and Palworld on discussion boards as well as in other formats. The leak has sparked widespread discussion on platforms like YouTube and X (formerly Twitter), framing it as Nintendo’s attempt to counter Palworld’s success with what Nintendo may want to be regarded as a more “mature” take on creature collection.
Based on analyses from the leak video and related X posts, the game in development incorporates Palworld-esque mechanics blended with Pokémon’s core loop:
| Aspect | Palworld Mechanics | Leaked Pokémon Game Mechanics (Per Leak) |
| Open-World Exploration | Vast, procedurally generated biomes for survival and base-building. | Expansive, seamless open world with dynamic weather and terrain deformation, emphasizing exploration over linear paths. |
| Creature Capture & Combat | Capture weakened Pals with spheres; ride, battle, or automate them (e.g., factories). | Aiming-based capture system (similar to low-health throws); creatures can be ridden for traversal and summoned for hybrid gun-melee combat. |
| Survival Elements | Resource gathering, crafting weapons/tools, hunger/thirst management. | Integrated survival crafting: forage for materials, build temporary camps, and use creatures for labor (e.g., mining or farming). |
| Multiplayer and Cooperative Gameplay (Co-op) | Co-op raids and base-sharing with friends. | Teased co-op modes for shared worlds, including PvP creature duels. |
| Tone & Progression | Edgy, post-apocalyptic vibe with guns and ethical dilemmas. | Darker aesthetic than mainline Pokémon, with “mature” themes like resource scarcity and creature exploitation—echoing fan demands unmet by Nintendo. |
All of the above is based on what we see others say. But there clearly are signs of Nintendo evolving Pokémon, or at least an upcoming Pokémon spin-off, in Palworld’s direction. While Legends: Z-A (set for a 2025 release) already experiments with open-world elements from Legends: Arceus, the leak suggests this could be an expanded mode or spin-off. Fan reactions on X compare it to 2022 concept art re-imagining Pokémon as an open-world survival game. Some of Pocketpair’s various defenses (April 18, 2025 games fray article) against Nintendo’s patent lawsuit stress the fact that the patents in question relate to a traditional Pokémon-style game while Palworld is a survival game.
Those details come directly from the leaked build footage, which shows prototype levels with a red-haired protagonist (mirroring Palworld‘s default character) taming and deploying creatures in a forested, hostile environment. Later this month, Nintendo may shed light on some of this at a Switch 2 reveal event.
Is lawfare a good PR strategy?
What may work in favor of what could be a PR strategy by Nintendo is that it’s very difficult for laypersons to understand what patents cover and whether patents are strong or weak. We try hard on this website to explain some of the issues, but patent law is a complicated field and it actually takes years to learn how it works, and even more time to develop an understanding of what is likely to succeed in court.
The average person sees that Nintendo claims Pocketpair “stole” something. It takes some research to find out that, for example, Pocketpair already demoed gliding Pals in June 2021, about six months prior to the earliest (!) of Nintendo’s related patent applications (May 11, 2025 games fray article). Pocketpair didn’t patent gliding Pals, so the question is not whether Nintendo infringe any of Pocketpair’s IP, but whether such prior art will result in the invalidation of Nintendo’s patents-in-suit.
Nintendo is definitely taking a risk here. If its patent infringement complaint is rejected (such as because some patents are invalid and some are not infringed under a reasonable interpretation called claim construction), then it will look like a bogus lawsuit. That would backfire badly, and it would do nothing to position Nintendo as an original creator and true innovator. Also, Pocketpair could then bring back some of the game mechanics it removed out of an abundance of caution.
Games and their makers are subject to the rule of law. Intellectual property rights must be respected. But the purpose of the patent system never was to protect game rules.
Nintendo itself is on the receiving end of patent assertions. For example, in early December, the Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) Hamburg Local Division (“Hamburg LD”) will hold two trials (on consecutive days) in which a patent licensing firm that acquired former mobile device maker BlackBerry’s patents is alleging infringement by Nintendo. games fray‘s sibling site ip fray is the leading media outlet following (not only, but as one of its top two priorites) UPC litigation and well aware of those cases.