The famously litigious Nintendo is back at it again, targeting the hilarious Palworld Pokémon mod that broke the internet yesterday.
With over 5,000,000 copies of Palworld sold in just three days, PocketPair’s controversial Pokéclone has been accused of plagiarism and AI art. However, while The Pokémon Company isn’t interested in the title, Nintendo’s lawyers are at the ready.
The Palworld Pokémon Mod was one of the best Palworld mods that replaced the game’s creatures with their Pocket Monsters counterparts. For example, Sparkit is replaced with Pikachu, Cremis is replaced with Eevee, etc. Human characters are also replaced with Ash Ketchum being the protagonist and Team Rocket becoming the villains.
YouTuber Toasted took to Twitter to reveal that their gameplay videos of the new mod had been removed via a DMCA takedown. Less than a day since the video promoting the mod was released, the video was removed from the internet.
“Nintendo has come for me, please leave me in your thoughts and prayers,” Toasted told fans on his Twitter account.
The closeness to Pokémon has already caused issues for Palworld developer PocketPair even without the hilarious mod. PocketPair developers have been sent countless death threats over accusations of plagiarism and the use of AI art which caused the company’s CEO to speak out.
Even without a Palworld PlayStation port or a Palworld Nintendo Switch version, the open world survival game has proven extremely popular. While it’s complete Pal list may be too close to comfort for some people, the game does provide a lot of unique gameplay for fans to play.
The game also takes a lot of cues from Breath of the Wild from its music stings to letting you craft gliders, ride pals and even explore dungeons. There’s even tower locations to find. It may not be finished at the time of writing, but it’s still dense.
Palworld is currently available right now on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC. The game is also included in the Xbox Game Pass subscription service and playable via Xbox Cloud Gaming.