Palworld's TCG Officially Launches Tomorrow

Palworld is a monster taming, open world survival crafting game from Japanese studio Pocketpair that entered Early Access in January 2024 and quickly became one of the biggest gaming stories of that year.

Players capture and battle creatures called Pals that bear an unmistakable resemblance to Pokemon, only here you can also put them to work on a farm or strap a gun to their back. The game has since crossed 32 million players across Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation 5.

That resemblance is exactly what drew Nintendo’s attention. In September 2024, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company sued Pocketpair in Tokyo District Court, alleging that Palworld’s creature capturing and mount switching mechanics infringed on patents the two companies jointly hold. The suit seeks roughly $66,000 in damages plus an injunction, a modest number that has surprised some observers given the scale of Palworld’s success.

No trial date has been set, and both a Japanese patent office rejection and a US Patent Office decision rejecting Nintendo’s related patent claims have weakened the case in recent months. Palworld remains available for purchase worldwide while the litigation continues.

The card game itself comes from Bushiroad, the Japanese publisher behind franchises like Weiss Schwarz and Cardfight Vanguard, working with developer Yuhodo. The inaugural booster set, Dawn of Palpagos, features original artwork for more than 50 Pals, including fan favorites like Lily and Zoe, and launches alongside two trial decks built for players who want to start battling immediately.

Bushiroad already announced that the set has sold over 3.5 million packs worldwide heading into launch day, a strong preorder signal for a brand new game. North American retail pricing hasn’t fully settled yet, but full list of participating retailers is available on Bushiroad’s official store locator.

The early individual card market is already showing some wild numbers. Booster boxes and packs, nominally retailing for ~$45 and $10, are reselling for up to $85 and $30 respectively. At least two copies of the “Chillet – Dragon Whisperer” card have sold for over $1,000 in the past 24 hours.

The trading card space has seen a wave of new entrants since the pandemic, with speculators chasing the next Pokemon style breakout. Palworld arrives with a built in audience and a controversial reputation, which makes it a genuinely interesting test case. It has real cultural cachet from being the game that dared to go after Pokemon’s lunch, and that same novelty is likely driving a lot of the early buying.

Whether that translates into a game people are still collecting in five or ten years is a much harder question. Plenty of post-covid TCGs launched to strong first week numbers before demand cooled once the initial curiosity wore off.

In short, we’ll be keeping our eyes on this one. A second expansion, “Legends Awaken”, is expected to launch in October, and the manufacturer has revealed a host of events scheduled through 2026.