In the few days since its release, Palworld has absolutely blown up on the internet. It’s beat out several massive games for all-time peak concurrent player counts. While many have wondered if Nintendo will take action against the game due to its numerous similarities to Pokemon, it appears they’re definitely against the community making any blatant connections to their monster-catching franchise, as modder ToastedShoes has already been DMCA’d by the company for posting a Palworld Pokemon mod trailer online.
The trailer, which was uploaded yesterday, showcased a mod with some model swaps that replaced many of Palworld’s Pal creatures with classic Pokemon. A more complete overview has since been uploaded on YouTube, which you can view below:
The initial trailer was quickly removed from Twitter, and shortly after its removal, ToastedShoes tweeted an image with the caption “Nintendo has come for me, please leave me in your thoughts and prayers:”
Nintendo has come for me, please leave me in your thoughts and prayers pic.twitter.com/HGg65y67Qp
— Toasted (@ToastedShoes) January 23, 2024
If we had to guess, Palworld is likely in too much of a gray area for Nintendo to come after it without substantial evidence on their side. The mod, however, is a blatant rip of Nintendo assets, and while we think it’s a fun change-up for the game, Nintendo clearly doesn’t see it the same way.
The mod is pretty extensive so far from the footage ToastedShoes shared. It replaces the player character with Ash Ketchum, the animated series’ protagonist. It also swaps out well over a dozen creature models with familiar Pokemon faces such as Torchic, Electabuzz, and of course, Pikachu.
The mod is currently not publicly available as ToastedShoes wants to play it safe given Nintendo’s recent DMCA. If the mod gets put up for download, we’ll be sure to let our readers know.
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It’s a sad day when modders can make better Pokemon models then Game Freak and have more dedication then developers by having mods already for Palworld when it just released.
The fact that people are still stupid enough to announce fan projects before they are released says a lot about human intelligence or lack thereof. What is so hard about shutting your mouth until it’s released? It’s not complicated like brain surgery, it’s really simple, just shut the hell up. SMFH