Back in August, the fan-made Pokemon Uranium was rolled out online to fans everywhere after nearly a decade of development.
Uranium is a fairly special example in an ocean of Pokemon fan games, offering up 15o new monsters to catch, a new region to explore, online battling/trading, and visuals that resemble the DS games – with some extra graphical flourishes.
Naturally, Nintendo soon offered a takedown notice, forcing the developer to remove all legit download links from their site – but new patches were still being released, and support continued for the game’s online features.
Of course, as we all knew it probably would, Pokemon Uranium has now had to shut down for a good.
A messaged posted to the game’s official Twitter read:
Unfortunately, as Pokemon Uranium is a fan game, there is a limit to how far projects such as these can go. We are therefore ceasing development on this project. As such, we, the creators of the game, will no longer be offering game downloads, updates, online services, or support for Pokemon Uranium. We’re immensely flattered and overwhelmed by the response that this game has received–but now is the time for us to move on to future efforts. We hope that all of you will continue to be passionate about Pokemon, and join us in celebrating the 20th anniversary with joy and love.
We will no longer be providing updates or support for Pokémon Uranium.
Thank you all for playing. pic.twitter.com/tumjOEMVDe— Pokémon Uranium (@PokemonUranium) September 21, 2016
There’s no confirmation that this takedown notice comes directly from Nintendo, the Pokemon Company, or the companies’ lawyers.
While this is a shame, we’d all to well to remember that Nintendo would have every right to shut this project down. Pokemon Uranium was being given out for free with a brand new Pokemon game just around the corner, after all.
Clearly the guys behind Pokemon Uranium are immensely talented chaps – why not put another nine years of hard graft into an original idea that won’t get taken down?
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.