When Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair in September 2024, many expected a long legal battle with potentially serious consequences for one of gaming’s biggest hits. Nearly two years later, however, the situation looks very different.

The lawsuit centered on three Japanese patents related to monster capture/release and riding mechanics. Nintendo had sought both an injunction and damages, but setbacks like patent office rejections for lack of originality (citing prior art from games like ARK and others) have weakened their position significantly.

Recent court developments suggest Nintendo’s case has narrowed significantly, with the dispute now focused almost entirely on older versions of Palworld rather than the game players are experiencing today. While the lawsuit isn’t over, its ability to meaningfully impact Palworld’s future appears to be fading.

The shift happened after Pocketpair proactively altered several gameplay mechanics that had become central to Nintendo’s patent claims.

You can no longer summon Pals by throwing Pal Spheres in the way you could at launch, and gliding has been redesigned to rely on a dedicated glider rather than using Pals directly. Pocketpair has openly acknowledged these changes were made to avoid disruptions to development and distribution while the legal process continues.

That alone raises an interesting question: if the disputed features are already gone, what exactly is left to fight over? At this stage, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are primarily pursuing damages tied to earlier versions of the game.

Reports suggest the potential financial reward could be relatively small compared to the scale of the case itself. More importantly for players, there is currently no indication that Palworld’s upcoming 1.0 launch on July 10, 2026 is under threat.

For Pocketpair, that’s arguably the most important victory. The studio has spent the past two years transforming Palworld from an early-access phenomenon into one of the biggest success stories in recent gaming history.

What initially caught attention as “Pokémon with guns” quickly evolved into something broader: a survival-crafting game that combined creature collection, base building, exploration, and multiplayer systems in a way that resonated with millions of gamers. That popularity is a major reason the lawsuit generated so much discussion beyond legal circles.

Many argue the case represents a growing problem within the games industry, where broad gameplay concepts can become the subject of patent disputes. Supporters of Nintendo, meanwhile, maintain that companies have a right to defend intellectual property they believe is being infringed upon.

The reality likely sits somewhere in the middle. While Nintendo may have succeeded in forcing certain design compromises, the larger objective appears increasingly out of reach. The possibility of an injunction affecting Palworld’s current version has diminished considerably, and the game continues moving toward its full release with major updates still on the roadmap.

The optics have also become complicated for Nintendo. Online discussions increasingly frame Pocketpair as the underdog surviving against one of gaming’s largest corporations. Whether fair or not, many players view the lawsuit less as a defense of innovation and more as an attempt to limit a competitor that successfully tapped into a market Pokémon itself had struggled to satisfy in recent years.

What’s particularly notable is that Palworld’s success hasn’t slowed during the legal battle. If anything, the lawsuit may have increased public awareness of the title. With another court hearing expected in October, the case is not technically over.

Nintendo may still secure some form of financial compensation tied to earlier builds of the game, but the likelihood of significantly altering Palworld’s trajectory appears slim.

Palworld is hitting full release for all platforms next month, on July 10th globally. The game has been available for Windows PC (via Steam and the Microsoft Store), Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.

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Following on from the announcement that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be Xbox console exclusive, Xbox execs have made some clarifying statements about what this means going forward.

Speaking with Gamertag Radio Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty explained that this is not a hard and fast rule, but much more nuanced.

“We know that exclusives are important, that’s why we’ve got Gears [of War: E-Day] coming in 2026, Clockwork [Revolution] in 2027.” Booty said, but also noted that “If we’ve promised something to players already, we are going to honour that promise.,” Booty stated, adding exclusivity will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

This follows up the statement on Xbox Wire that, “As part of our focus on the return of XBOX, we also announced that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be XBOX console exclusives. These are not timed exclusives. Games already announced for multiplatform releases will stick to that plan – we’re committed to investing in and growing XBOX both on console and beyond.”

We can break this down into three buckets:

• Live service and multiplayer-first games will all be coming to PS5 in addition to Xbox and PC.
• Any game already announced and confirmed for PlayStation 5 will still be coming to PS5.
• Everything else will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Got that? Let’s look at some examples.

Call of Duty will obviously never now be an exclusive – and it’s not clear how this statement relates to Activision anyway – given that it’s heavily multiplayer focussed and has long-standing promises about multi-platform availability.

Halo: Campaign Evolved and Fable were previously announced for PS5, and so they will still come to PlayStation. For the future of Halo, Microsoft will need to decide if it’s a live service or multiplayer-first series, but there’s now precedent for a remake or remaster to then not have a cross-platform sequel – Gears Reloaded and E-Day.

State of Decay 3, which is heavily co-op and online similar to a Grounded 2 makes sense to be cross-platform, but then Senua, which is a single-player action-adventure game would surely have been a prime candidate to be Xbox exclusive. But maybe that gets an exclusion because the first game launched first for PlayStation 4?

And, look, The Elder Scrolls VI will be on PlayStation because they want it to sell bucket loads after the middling reception to Starfield, but now there’s a seed of doubt about it, isn’t there?

In general, I think I’m in favour of Microsoft going back to having exclusives. It does feel odd having Halo and Gears on PlayStation, but there do need to be good reasons for people to stay with Xbox as a platform (or PC) for it to remain viable. So this is a good move for the platform as a whole, but let’s not pretend that it isn’t just like in 2023 when the former executive team struggled to explain what the plan really was.

Source: Xbox, Gamertag Radio via VGC

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A little bit of space travel, anyone? Last time I checked in on Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions, the sort of spin off of regular ole Astroneer, it had only just shown off some gameplay for the first time. Apparently somewhere along the line I blinked and now here we are on its early access release day!

But how about what you should expect from this launch? “What you’ll find on day one is the starting shape of the game,” explain System Era Softworks. “What the launch on June 11, 2026 represents is the beginning of the conversation we have been wanting to have with you for a long, long time. The game will grow. It will adapt.” What this means in practice is that you and some of your buddies can go explore an alien planet (the first of several to come), do some missions, fend off some critters, get some resources, and return to your space station before you run out of oxygen.

The early access release is already ready to go with things like cross-platform and -progression, there’s a whole bunch of missions to dive into, some story bits to discover, so it doesn’t sound like you’ll be bored in five minutes (unless, ya know, this isn’t your sort of game, and if so, that’s on you, buddy). In terms of how long the devs estimate that Starseeker will be in early access for, they’re currently saying around one year, noting that they “want to work sustainably while leaving enough time to respond to player feedback.”

There is a roadmap with various updates you can expect too, just without any dates attached to them. The first update will focus on ocean gameplay and comes with a new region, the second is more about endgame threats, the third will add in some expedition modifiers like weather, extraction pressure, and endgame station rewards, and updates four and five will build upon that with quality of life improvements and new events.

You can pick up Starseeker: Astroneer on Steam now.

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Square Enix has announced that the full Kingdom Hearts saga so far is being upgraded and ported to PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2, launching on 8th October 2026.

As part of this, the KINGDOM HEARTS Collection [I~III] will be sold as an all-in-one bundle for people that want the whole lot,  but you can also buy each chapter separately. That’s KINGDOM HEARTS -HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX-, KINGDOM HEARTS HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue and KINGDOM HEARTS III + Re Mind (DLC).

I know I’m not the first one to say this, but the way these remastered collections have been named over the years is beyond ridiculous.

The big news for Switch 2 buyers is that these will now be running natively on the console, where the Switch 1 releases were all ‘Cloud ver.’ and played remotely. That was Goofy at the time and it’s still pretty quackers, if you ask Donald me. A demo of Kingdom Hearts 3 is available today for Switch 2 featuring the start of the game through to Olympus (with save data that can carry across to the full game), and then jumping ahead to Toy Box World (where save data will not carry over)

Upgrade pricing is also available, with a 50% discount on digital purchases from last gen to Switch 2, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Switch 1 to Switch 2 will also be able to transfer save data, but this is a mysteriously absent feature on Xbox and PlayStation. I see no good reason why it shouldn’t be possible, given that there’s countless other games that have a save transfer between generations.

Square Enix also released a new teaser trailer for Kingdom Hearts IV, confirming that it will now also be coming to Switch 2.

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