Pocketpair has been involved in a protracted legal battle with Nintendo following the launch of the hyper-popular creature collector, Palworld, and it seems as though Nintendo is on the back foot for the time being, with an October 2025 decision by the Japanese Patent Office denying Nintendo's application for a patent on creature capture mechanics. Still, despite the ongoing legal battle between the two gaming companies, Pocketpair's CEO, Takuro Mizobe, has commented in a recent interview with VGC that a Nintendo Switch 2 port may be on the cards, as long as Nintendo is willing to come to the table and as long as those conversations are possible.

Takuro MizobeFirst of all, I should say that we think the Switch 2 is a really amazing platform, not just for games globally, but especially here in Japan and for the Japanese games industry. It's been an incredible platform. If there's ever a future where we have the opportunity to discuss or consider bringing Palworld to the Switch platform in some way, then we'd love to have those conversations.

As covered in TechPowerUp's most recent This Week in Gaming, Pawprint Studios has officially released Aniimo, a new, free-to-play open-world creature collector RPG—the latest creature collector in a wave started by the wildly popular Palworld, and it seems as though the game's reception is somewhat mixed.

While Aniimo has seen over 127,000 peak concurrent players in its first 12 hours since launch on Steam, peaking at 127,914, according to SteamDB, and dipping slightly to 124,466 at the time of writing, players have seemingly not had a universally positive experience, with the game earning a Mixed review rating on Steam from just 58% of its 1,648 reviews being positive.

As we enter the middle of September, we kick off the week with an open world creature collector that doesn't appear to borrow too heavily from the famous Nintendo franchise, but some parallels can obviously be drawn. As for the rest of this week's release, we start with a different take on an RPG, where you're the guild master instead of the adventurer and we follow this up with an action horror FPS with PvP battles. If you'd rather be a DVD salesman/assassin, we got you covered this week and if that's not your beat, how about part of a JRPG or maybe you prefer an evolutionary resource management automation builder? Don't forget to check out the other new releases this week as well, but be warned that they're all early access games.

Aniimo / This week's major release / Wednesday 16 September
Aniimo is a free-to-play, next-gen creature-catching open-world RPG. Explore the vast continent of Idyll, Twine with unique Aniimo, unlock new abilities. Travel to a sky-floating metropolis, meet other Pathfinders, and battle in exciting competitions. Choose your Aniimo and begin your epic journey. Steam link

Since the January 2024 Early Access release of Palworld, Pocketpair, the developer and publisher behind the open-world creature collector, has been growing its Pal-flavored empire, announcing a life sim, Palworld: Palfarm, Palworld Mobile, a Palworld TCG, and even a dating sim, "Pal♡world! More Than Just Pals." Now, according to recent trademark filings at the US PTO, it looks as though Pocketpair is planning to release something called "Palworld Online," although there's not all that much in the trademark filing to go by otherwise. The trademark is filed under IC9, covering digital and physical goods with specific mention of game cartridges and downloadable media; IC41, likely to cover online gaming services and related musical IP; and IC42, which covers, among other things, design and development of computer hardware and software.

Since Palworld already has online gameplay as central to the experience, and the studio is already involved in a handful of other genres within the same IP, online speculation about the trademark is leaning in two directions: a gacha game or a more traditional MMO experience. While either seems equally likely at this point, the recent trend for game studios to lean into gacha mechanics as a money-making mechanism has fans of Palworld concerned about the future of the franchise. It should also be mentioned that the trademark application also includes specific mention of "artificial intelligence as a service" and "services featuring software using artificial intelligence (AI) for developing computer games," which could simply mean traditional AI, as in the kind that powers player interactions with in-game enemies, but the inclusion of the acronym AIAAS suggests that there will be some sort of AI integration in whatever Palworld Online becomes.

Despite having a rather rough launch period, No Man's Sky has since earned a loyal fan base thanks to consistent updates that have dramatically increased the quality of the game. The game's latest update steps things up again, introducing a whole new gameplay loop for players to get into. The No Man's Sky Xeno Arena update allows players to collect the myriad alien creatures they encounter on their travels throughout the universe, raise, train, and battle them in turn-based combat arenas. The No Man's Sky Xeno Arena update is already available on all platforms, and Hello Games seems to have put a decent amount of thought and depth into the new game mode's mechanics.

Much like Nintendo's Pokémon, the creatures in No Man's Sky will have a specific type, which will here be dictated by the creature's native habitat and climate and their species. Abilities include attack, support, healing, and even the ability to transmute opponent creatures into more vulnerable forms. Players will also be able to see and augment their creatures' genetic profiles and breed different creatures to prioritize certain traits. The update also increases the number of creatures a player can tame from 18 to 30, allowing players to build a sizeable roster of battle monsters. Players will also have access to daily battle challenges with an online leaderboard, and players will also be able to survey wild creatures' battle capabilities with creature survey mode ahead of capturing them.