As a way to avoid getting caught up in legal issues, hugely popular mod site Nexus Mods has shut down any hopes of hosting Pokemon mods for Palworld.
If you've been playing, or even just paying attention, to Palworld, you might notice that it takes some inspiration from the popular creature-collecting behemoth that is Nintendo's Pokemon. It's this familiarity that likely helped springboard it to 8 million copies sold in just the first six days since it launched this month. The similarities are striking, from the act of capturing Pals to even some of the designs themselves, and it's even got Nintendo sitting up and paying attention now.
However, legally ambiguous Palworld might end up being as lawyers look into it with their mouths watering. The internet's main source of mods for practically any modded PC game, Nexus Mods, wants to stay off the legal radar. As a result, the site has banned Pokemon mods for Palworld, specifically citing Nintendo's "consistent record of mercilessly submitting legal challenges."
While Nexus Mods acknowledge the appeal of porting Pokemon into Palworld, the announcement states hat they do not feel "comfortable" hosting those mods themselves.
"Given Palworld's similarity to the Pokémon franchise as a base game, hosting content that adds Pokémon copyrighted characters or assets into the game is almost certainly going to put us at risk of legal action," Nexus Mods stated. They continue, "Palworld content that is uploaded to Nexus Mods and is considered to have Pokémon-derived characters or assets will be taken down. Our normal moderation policies will apply."
This doesn't mean Nexus Mods won't host Palworld mods, as the company has already released support for Pocket Pair's game on their Nexus Mod Manager. It just means you'll need to look elsewhere if you want to swap your Foxsparks with a Vulpix.