No, Nexus Mods doesn't fancy hosting those Palworld Pokemon mods that Nintendo probably isn't a fan of
It might be cool to add Pikachu to Palworld, but no one wants to deal with legal backlash.
Popular modding site Nexus Mods has confirmed that it’s not a big fan of the idea of hosting Pokemon-themed mods for Palworld that could well attract negative attention from Nintendo’s legal department.
If you’re out of the loop, one of many points of discussion amid of the whole Palworld/Pokemon discourse - which The Pokemon Company has now acknowledged - has been the mods adding actual Pokemon to the former that’ve quickly popped up following its release. Given that some of them already seem to have attracted some negative attention from Nintendo, it’s not that surprising that one of the world’s biggest modding platforms isn’t open to the idea of hosting similar creations.
“We do think that adding Pokemon content to Palworld is a very cool idea and we understand why people would want such a thing,” Nexus Mods community manager Demorphic wrote in a statement posted to the modding site. “However, we're not comfortable hosting this content at Nexus Mods.”
They cited Nintendo’s “consistent record of mercilessly submitting legal challenges, DMCAs and takedowns against fan-made content” as the reasoning behind this decision, saying: “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.”
So, going forwards, any Palworld mods uploaded to Nexus Mods that are judged to feature “Pokémon-derived characters or assets” will be taken down.
While it might annoy those who just can’t go without a Bulbasaur Pal, this definitely shouldn’t be any kind of death knell for Palworld modding as a whole. As Demorphic outlined: “There are many creative opportunities to explore mods for this game that add to the world and gameplay, but do not infringe on existing IP so obviously.
So, hopefully modders take on the encouragement from Nexus Mods to “explore these modding directions” instead of just adding Ash Ketchum’s buddies to it. Especially since the site’s dedicated mod manager, Vortex, now boasts a specific extension that can provide support for those looking to mod Palworld.
If you’re trying to get started with Palworld, make sure to check out our array of guides to everything from getting some High Quality Pal Oil to moving your base.