Palworld's viral success has already drawn a lot of obvious "Pokémon with guns" comparisons. But when it comes to mods that might add actual Pokémon to the game, at least one major online clearinghouse is preemptively and proactively avoiding anything that could draw Nintendo's legal ire.
Nexus Mods, a mod distribution site with tens of millions of registered users, said in a posted statement that it won't take the legal risk of distributing any Pokémon-themed Palworld mods. “We do think that adding Pokémon content to Palworld is a very cool idea and we understand why people would want such a thing," the statement reads. "However, we’re not comfortable hosting this content."
Nexus Mods cites Nintendo's "consistent record of mercilessly submitting legal challenges, DMCAs, and takedowns against fan-made content" as the main reason behind its hesitation. "Given Palworld’s similarity to the Pokémon franchise as a base game, hosting content that adds copyrighted characters or assets into the game is almost certainly going to put us at risk of legal action. 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."
The preemptive statement (and takedown of at least one Pokémon-themed Palworld mod that previously snuck through to the site) is especially interesting considering that other Pokémon-related content mods are quite easy to find across the Nexus Mods site. A quick search turns up mods for everything from Pokémon-themed horses in Stardew Valley to Pokémon-themed monsters in Resident Evil 4 to Pokémon-themed dragons in Skyrim, alongside hundreds more.