Palworld leaving early access in 2026, amidst ongoing Nintendo lawsuit

Pocketpair is aiming to release Palworld 1.0 in 2026, despite the company’s ongoing legal battle with Nintendo.

In a YouTube video released on September 16, 2025, Palworld communications director and publishing manager, Bucky, revealed that Pocketpair’s “goal is ultimately to release Palworld next year in 2026,” with the company planning a “truly massive amount of content” for the 1.0 release.

But “there’s a lot of cleanup that needs to be done before Palworld can exit early access,” Bucky explained.

“It’s no secret that Palworld has a lot of quirks and jank, and we want to take the time to properly address those before releasing the game. With that in mind, we plan to start that cleanup this year.”

Pocketpair believes that “taking the time now to fix those problems will ultimately lead to a better game.”

As a result, the company will be “a little quiet for the rest of this year.” And while it still plans to release a winter update for Palworld, it “won’t be as big” as December 2024’s Feybreak update was.

“We just want to be transparent about where we’re headed and the development of Palworld going forward,” Bucky continued.

Bucky also provided the company’s reasoning behind the launch of Pocketpair’s publishing arm, Pocketpair Publishing, in January this year, explaining that it was “born out of the desire to give back to the industry and help fun games get made.”

“Thanks to Palworld’s success, we’re in a lucky position and are able to help other developers and take risks,” Bucky said in the video. “We want to use our success to help support others.

“Pocketpair Publishing won’t be developing games, but rather, we’ll be helping other developers with things like funding, marketing, distribution, or just offering them some advice.”

Pocketpair has already partnered with Surgent Studios to produce its upcoming horror title, due to release later this year.

Bucky also teased that Pocketpair is “working on some other things.”

“Of course, right now, most of the company’s focus is on Palworld, but we want to stay true to our roots, which is why we’ve got several smaller teams tinkering away at ideas that hopefully we can turn into fun games for you all to play.”

Pocketpair’s video didn’t, however, touch on the company’s ongoing legal battle with Nintendo.

In September 2024, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair over alleged similarities between the Pokémon games and Palworld.

Nintendo accused the Palworld developer of infringing “multiple patent rights,” and in November 2024, Pocketpair shared the demands from the lawsuit and the patents it’s accused of infringing.

The three specific patents in question were filed after Palworld’s early access release in January 2024, and cover a system for using capture items that can catch characters encountered in a virtual space, an aiming system for deploying such capture items, and a system for rideable characters.

In an analysis for GamesIndustry.biz, MBHB associate Andrew Velzen speculated that Nintendo designed these patents “with the intention of targeting Palworld.”

In September 2025, Nintendo filed another patent, which covers “in-game characters summoning others to battle,” a common mechanic in games and one used in Palworld.

In response to the lawsuit, Pocketpair said in November 2024: “We will continue to assert our position in this case through future legal proceedings.”