Nintendo’s lawyers have killed another Palworld gameplay mechanic. Pocketpair issued a patch on Thursday that changes how gliding works in the cheeky “Pokémon with guns” satire.
You can still glide in Palworld, but you can no longer use your Pal to do so. Starting with patch v0.5.5, you can only soar with a boring, inanimate glider in your inventory. Although Glider Pals can still passively buff gliding, it’s no longer as fun as flinging out the creature and using their aerodynamics to cross a ravine.
As you’d expect, Pocketpair’s decision traces back to its legal defense. Nintendo and The Pokémon Company sued the developer in Japan last year, claiming Palworld infringes on multiple patents. Since then, Nintendo has filed a flurry of patent applications in the US in an apparent scheme to go global with its legal assault.
“We understand that this will be disappointing for many, just as it is for us,” Pocketpair wrote. “But we hope our fans understand that these changes are necessary in order to prevent further disruptions to the development of Palworld.”
Today’s update isn’t the first to bork the game to try to stave off the Mario maker’s legal barrage. In November, Palworld removed the ability to summon Pals by throwing Spheres, one of the game’s more Pokémon-esque details. But gliding is a much less established Pokémon gameplay mechanic. On top of that, it’s a common one in the industry, found in franchises as diverse as Far Cry, Fortnite and Batman: Arkham.
The lawsuit sparks fears that industry behemoths using the courts to snuff out smaller competitors will become more widespread. “Video game patent mechanics has to utterly die given how it’s either abused by major companies to cripple any competition or utterly wasted like with the Nemesis system from Middle-earth games,” u/DenseCalligrapher219 opined on Reddit.
Another way to view Nintendo’s move is that it masks the stench of a stagnant franchise. “If Nintendo is going to sabotage other Pokémon-like games, the least they could do is get Game Freak to develop a Pokémon game that isn’t garbage,” wrote u/VacantThoughts. “The world’s biggest franchise with the world’s laziest half-ass devs.”
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