In yet another frustrating blow for one of 2024’s breakout indie hits, Palworld, developer Pocketpair has been forced to axe yet another gameplay mechanic thanks to Nintendo’s ongoing legal crusade against anything that vaguely resembles competition.
As of May 8, 2025, Patch v0.5.5 officially removes the ability to glide using your Pals, a small but charming feature that added both flair and creature bonding depth to the survival-crafting experience.
Now, gliding mandates the games bland, inanimate glider item, while Pals have been downgraded to offering passive buffs, stripping away yet another layer of charm. This follows the November 2024 update that gutted the iconic Pal Sphere throwing mechanic, replacing it with a static, lifeless instantaneous summon system.
Both removals are the result of Nintendo’s aggressive legal assault on Palworld, a move many view as a thinly veiled attempt to suffocate competition instead of fixing the stale formula and regressive quality of the Pokémon franchise.
Palworld exploded onto the scene in January 2024, racking up 25 million players in its first month with its unique fusion of creature collecting, combat, survival, and crafting.
Naturally, it drew comparisons to Pokémon which sent hordes of corporate cocksucking man-children into a moral panic with accusations of “plagiarism,” as if The Pokémon Company holds the divine patent on animals.
Palworld’s massive success proved there’s a real hunger for a fresh spin on the monster-catching formula especially after Pokémon Scarlet and Violet disappointed in 2022 with countless bugs, bland visuals, and half-baked performance.
But instead of stepping up their game, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company chose the legal route, launching patent infringement claims in Japan and filing new patents in the U.S. to take their crackdown global.
Pocketpair’s latest statement, released with Patch v0.5.5, walks the tightrope between frustration and diplomacy, thanking fans for their support while apologizing for the “discomfort and concern” caused by the change.
Despite the legal headaches, they reaffirmed their commitment to pushing out new content.
This time, the feature under fire is gliding with Pals, which Nintendo claims infringes on patents like U.S. Patent Application No. 18/652,883, conveniently filed on May 2, 2024, well after Palworld had already made its early access debut.
The patent in question, linked to a 2021 Japanese “parent patent,” supposedly covers the “smooth switching of riding objects,” a mechanic seen in Pokémon Legends: Arceus where players fluidly swap between rideable Pokémon with a few menu taps.
But according to Japanese patent attorney Kiyoshi Kurihara, Palworld’s version is fundamentally different, requiring players to manually summon and mount their Pals, hardly the same system. Still, that hasn’t stopped Nintendo from weaponizing the patent anyway simply because they can.
Right: Palworld
The very idea of patenting gameplay mechanics is retarded in its own right as it could effectively monopolize aspects of video games behind specific companies or could be deliberately used as a weapon given Nintendo’s approach.
Patents like No. 7545191 (creature capture via thrown objects), No. 7493117 (creature combat systems), and No. 7528390 (dynamic mounting) attempt to stake ownership over broad, game mechanics that existed well before Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
But since Nintendo got to the patent office first, they now have the legal ammo to use those systems against others.
Games like ARK: Survival Evolved (2015) let players glide using creatures like the Archaeopteryx, while Dragon’s Dogma allows players to grab onto harpies and take to the skies.
Titles such as Fortnite, Valheim, Shadow of the Colossus, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Banjo-Kazooie, and even promotional art for Elden Ring all feature or suggest similar traversal mechanics yet somehow, Nintendo’s retroactive patent claims are being taken seriously.
Make no mistake: this is textbook patent trolling.
A detailed review by the American University Intellectual Property Brief reinforces this, pointing out that Palworld lacks the automatic mount-transition system described in Nintendo’s patent, making their infringement claim paper-thin.
If Nintendo truly had a legal case, they’d be going after Palworld for character design theft or name similarities. But they haven’t because they can’t. Instead, they’ve stooped to filing hyper-specific, post-launch patents and wielding them like scalpels to slowly gut Palworld’s systems, one feature at a time.
That’s not protecting intellectual property it’s corporate sabotage.
And it’s part of a growing pattern. In recent months, Nintendo of America has actively chipped away at the company’s reputation for being the last holdout against censorship, despite the Nintendo Switch being the only console platform still supporting fanservice-heavy Japanese titles.
Instead of embracing that niche going forward with the Switch 2, they’re now blacklisting games that don’t conform to their sanitized, globally palatable image, particularly those catering to straight male audiences.
You’d have to be either willfully blind or driven by emotional motives to pretend Nintendo owns the monopoly on this concept. At this point, why not try to patent turn-based combat or leveling systems and start taking SEGA and Square Enix to court.
Palworld didn’t succeed by copying Pokémon, it thrived by showing what a game reminiscent of Pokémon could be if Nintendo actually cared about modern gaming standards or let its child-friendly sensible panties loose. That’s the real reason for these lawsuits. Nintendo isn’t scared of infringement, it’s terrified of losing relevance and detests actual competition.
Nintendo’s tactics stink of opportunism. The fact that their patent filings came after Palworld’s release makes it clear they’re targeting specific mechanics with these retroactive claims, classic patent trolling. While it’s legally allowed, it’s a bullying move, especially when you consider that Palworld is a survival-crafting game, not a Pokémon-like RPG.
The kicker? Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are asking for a measly 10 million yen, or $66,000, which shows their true intent: harassment, not compensation. This kind of pressure forces indie studios like Pocketpair to retroactively alter their game, stripping away content, arguably a form of censorship due to no fault of their own.
Nintendo’s hypocrisy is impossible to ignore. They’ve built entire franchises by iterating on other people’s ideas, the Super Mario Bros. spin-off of “Dr. Mario” was just a Tetris knock-off just like hundreds of other games released over the years, yet they’re claiming ownership of specific aspects of creature capture and creature mounting, concepts that existed long before Pokémon even made the jump to 3D.
Games like Temtem and Nexomon have similar capture and battle mechanics, yet they haven’t faced a single lawsuit, proving Nintendo’s real issue with Palworld isn’t infringement, it’s the game’s massive success. Palworld’s sales rivaled those of mainline Pokémon titles, despite trailing behind, and that seems to be where Nintendo draws the line.
The loss of creature gliding in Palworld might be insignificant, but it goes well beyond a mere gameplay change, it’s a glaring example of corporate overreach.
As Pocketpair fights back, challenging the validity of these patents and citing prior art, the industry is paying close attention. A win for Nintendo would only encourage more patent trolling from some of the industries other cancerous entities, like EA and Activision.
Just imagine a future where a company as powerful as Nintendo patents fundamental mechanics like action skills, skill trees, or turn-based combat, this could open the floodgates for legal battles on every corner of the industry.
Nintendo didn’t stop their harassment of Pocketpair. On November 8, 2024, they filed patent US 2025/0058223 A1, which was published on February 20, 2025. The patent outlines a system for enhancing audio in virtual spaces, potentially aimed at proximity voice chat in games.
This, in and of itself, is downright egregious. Proximity voice chat isn’t new, games like Escape from Tarkov, PUBG, and Among Us have been using it for years. That’s why a win for Pocketpair is crucial.
It could stop this patent trolling and possibly bring back gameplay mechanics Nintendo forced them to remove. Ultimately, Pocketpair’s victory would safeguard the spirit of innovation that drives gaming forward, giving developers the freedom to iterate and build on what came before.
On the other hand, if the corporate giant wins, it’ll be nothing short of gentrification, effectively monopolizing core aspects of game design and stifling creativity by judicial means.
