Palworld Pokémon Mod DMCA’d By Nintendo

In a move that likely shocked no one, Nintendo has hit the creator of the Palworld mod that replaced the creatures and characters with Pokémon designs with a DMCA takedown. The fan-made mod replaced the Palworld creatures with many well-known Pokémon characters, even replacing the player with the star of the Pokémon anime series, Ash Ketchum. A YouTube video from the channel ToastedShoes was posted today that showcased the impressive mod, though, with this recent development, the mod will no longer be made publicly available, as had previously been planned. The popular Palworld descriptor “Pokémon with guns” will remain slightly less literal for now.

Palworld, the survival crafting game that also involves catching unique creatures and putting them to work, has exploded in popularity since its launch into Early Access last week. As of today, it has already become the third most popular game of all time on Steam, achieving the dizzying feet of 1.5 million players online at the same time. Only highly competitive multiplayer games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and PUBG have been able to outdo those numbers in the past.

The video showcasing Palworld’s Pokémon mod has already hit thirty-five thousand views in the first five hours it has been posted on YouTube. It is still available to watch on YouTube at the time of writing this, though images have been taken down from the creator’s X (formerly Twitter) due to the DMCA, so there is no telling how long it will remain up. With Nintendo likely watching the situation carefully, it would be surprising to see this mod available publicly anytime soon.

While people have speculated about the legitimacy of Palworld’s take on the monster-catching genre, Nintendo has yet to take action. Since this is not just some random Steam game but also one that can be played on Xbox Game Pass, it would be pretty huge news if Nintendo decided to make a move one way or another. Palworld may be the first non-Pokémon monster-catching game to become this popular, but there have been many other Pokémon adjacent games in the past, even on Nintendo’s consoles, that have avoided any legal trouble. Many of those games don’t even have what sets Palworld apart, such as the survival and crafting aspects of the game. But as Nintendo showed, this mod was a step too far for them.