The undeniable overlap between Pokemon and Palworld has dominated discussion around the survival game's record-setting launch, and with actual, straight-up Pokemon mods already working to replace the lovable, legally distinct Pals, the game's budding modding community is drawing a line in the sand to hopefully ensure "that Nintendo's lawyers don't nuke all of us."
The Palworld Modding Community Discord, linked at the top of the newly formed and rapidly growing PalworldMods subreddit, is distancing itself from Pokemon mods for the sake of the mod scene as a whole. In a statement posted to Discord this morning, server admin Archery 100 writes:
"Hey y'all, I'm sure many of you have been seeing all the content regarding the Pokemon mod for Palworld. While the memes and such are hilarious, the mod alone hosts a giant risk to the community and we'll need to take precautions so that Nintendo's lawyers don't nuke all of us with litigious actions. The mod is highly likely using ripped assets and is very illegal in Nintendo's eyes."
Nintendo's gone after plenty of mods and fan projects before, and Discord conversations are regularly pulled into DMCA cases from countless companies, so it's a reasonable concern. With this in mind, the community has banned links to share or download the Pokemon mod, as well as any files related to it. Such posts will be deleted and breaking these rules "will result in an immediate ban," though "casual discussion" of the mod is still permitted as long as nothing legally dubious winds up embedded in the Discord.
"This server really grew overnight and we see a lot of potential with this community! That being said, we want to take the necessary steps to ensure we can nurture all this together," Archery 100 adds.
Palworld lead shoots down legal concerns following Pokemon comparisons: "We have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies."
