Japanese developer Pocket Pair has released a new update for Palworld that effectively removes the Pal Spheres from the game.
The new v0.3.11 update for the game has removed the ability to summon Pals by throwing a Pal Sphere. Now, players summon their Pals by holding out the Pal Sphere, which summons their Pals directly next to them.
Before the update and the big change, players could throw their Pal Spheres out to summon their Pals just like another popular monster collecting game series, Pokemon, which a lot of fans speculate is the reason behind this unexpected change.
Nintendo’s ongoing lawsuit with Palworld developer Pocket Pair seeks an injunction and damages totaling roughly 10 million JPY (approximately $65,000 USD). The injunction is where Nintendo wants Palworld pulled from the market, due to the alleged similarities in the game to patents Nintendo filed.
Pocket Pair previously named three specific patents that are the basis for Nintendo’s lawsuit: 7545191, 7493117, and 7528390.
All three seemingly appear to be three versions of the same patent – protecting the gameplay concept of using a projectile to spawn a creature in a 3D environment, with the creature then engaging in combat on the player’s behalf.
It’s now obvious to see why Pocket Pair likely removed this from the game, but to date the developer hasn’t said a peep as to why they suddenly removed this functionality. Even more confusingly, the ability to throw Pal Spheres for catching Pals still remains in the game, though Nintendo probably hasn’t patented that yet.
The unexpected change has been almost universally hated by fans, mostly due to the fact that they would strategically throw Pal Spheres out of harm’s way when an enemy is attacking them. The old method could have also been used to place your Pals in a good spot for attacking.
It’s entirely possible Pocket Pair removed this gameplay mechanic from the game to avoid a potentially bad outcome from the lawsuit for them – if Nintendo wins they’d either be forced to remove the mechanic(s) or possibly be forced to remove the game from sale.
Palworld was released back in January 2024 for Windows PC (via Steam and the Microsoft Store), Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. The game has also been on Xbox Game Pass since day one.
