Palworld: Official Card Game, a brand-new trading card game based on Pocketpair’s creature-collecting game, has been revealed by Bushiroad and developer Pocketpair. While details are light for now, the game already has a launch date penciled in for July 30.
Bushiroad describes Palworld: Official Card Game as a two-player competitive card game where players can “enjoy strategic and tactical battles” by deploying unique Pals to the battlefield. “Players fight alongside their Pal companions, gathering resources, and building bases as they aim for victory,” the description reads. Each Pal also has unique traits, and cleverly utilizing them can open up a path to victory.
Rumblings of a Palworld trading card game kicked off last year after Pocketpair and Animate subsidiary COS purchased shares in Japanese card game publisher Bushiroad. Bushiroad Corporation’s CEO and president, Takaaki Kidani, sold his shares to the company (via Automaton). This followed Pocketpair’s formation of Palworld Entertainment, a new company arm dedicated to maximizing Palworld’s merchandising opportunities.
Amidst these developments, Pocketpair has found itself involved in a lawsuit against Nintendo over Palworld and several comparisons to the Pokemon franchise, including a cozy spin-off game called Palworld: Palfarm, that looks similar to Pokemon Pokopia. Pocketpair eventually removed some of the Palworld gameplay features that Nintendo objected to.
The litigation has become even more complex between the two, following an order from the head of the United States Patent and Trademark Office to reexamine Nintendo’s registered patent that “covers the fundamental gameplay mechanic of summoning a character and letting it fight another” in a video game.
