Pokémon Uranium has been put back on the shelve back in August, but now it is official the team is stopping all development on the ambitious fan-game, Pokémon Uranium. This means there will no longer be any free downloads available and no updates or patches moving forward.
After Nintendo sent out a copyright notice, the download was only found using unofficial third parties. The Pokémon Uranium team released a statement on their Twitter page stating “Unfortunately as Pokémon Uranium is a fan based game, there’s a limit on how far projects like this can go. As such, we will no longer offer game downloads, updates or online support for Pokémon Uranium.”
Unfortunately, this means if you’re a Pokémon Uranium player, the version you have is the last version you will ever be able to play. Their announcement also stated the production of Pokémon Uranium has been in the making for 9 years, finally being able to launch this past summer. Their fan-game was able to reach 1.5 million downloads within a week, making it a rapid underground sensation.
However, it wasn’t underground enough that Nintendo was unable to find it in their mission to bring the hammer down on games that are similar to their big titles, such as Zelda, Mario and of course Pokémon. Their efforts seem to have become stricter over the past few weeks. In a similar situation, a remake of Metroid 2: The Return of Samus also stopped downloads, then retired the project shortly after.
Just last month alone, over 500 Nintendo fan-games was taken off GameJolt as a result of copyright claims by Nintendo. Which is a sad situation since fan-games based on the most followed and loved series have been around since the beginning of file sharing, but Nintendo no longer seems to be happy with being paid homage.
