Palworld will not be releasing on PS5 in Japan at this time.
Last night, during PlayStation's State of Play stream, developer Pocketpair announced that its monster-catching survival game was available to play for the first time on Sony's console.
However, while Palworld debuted on PS5 in 68 countries and regions around the world, it has yet to launch in Japan.
This detail was revealed by Palworld's Japanese social media team early this morning.
In a post shared on X, the account said that “the release date in Japan has not been decided yet” (translated by Google).
“We apologize to everyone who was waiting for it in Japan, but all of our staff will do their best to deliver it to PS5 users as soon as possible, so we hope you'll wait a little longer,” he continued. “We look forward to your continued support of Palworld.”
While no reason was given for Japan's omission of the PS5, it's fair to assume it has something to do with the fact that Nintendo is suing Pocketpair for patent infringement. Pocketpair claims it doesn't know which patents it has infringed, though recent reports suggest it's a patent relating to how players throw Pokéballs.
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Before its release, Palworld was dubbed by many as “Pokémon with guns” due to its similarities to Nintendo’s creature-catching game. Palworld was the first big hit of 2024, surpassing 2 million concurrent players on Steam in January. It was only the second game to achieve this, the other being PUBG.
Eurogamer has asked Pocketpair and Sony for further comment.