Do you know the old saying “don’t poke the bear”? The modding and fan game community does all too well with Nintendo. Nintendo has a notorious reputation for striking down fan games with a swift hammer. So this story is a wild one.
Last week, a fan project for the Pokémon franchise went viral on social media. The project was an FPS where you went on a “safari” with Pokémon as the target. As you can imagine, Nintendo stepped in very quickly with cease actions. All footage of the game was removed under copyright laws across multiple platforms. If you want to see it for yourself, you’re going to have to check Reddit. As of the publishing of this article, that’s the only place left Nintendo hasn’t hit yet.
Full credit to the creator, Reddit user Dragon_GameDev, for trying. They wrote that they had started the Pokémon FPS project to learn more about game development. But a game where you could shoot a Nidoking with an AK-47 was never going to stay on the internet for long. Once the footage went viral enough for Nintendo to see, that was game over for the project.
It stinks that Nintendo is so stingy about fan projects. But this one? I completely get why they want no traces of it online. Pokémon Legends: Arceus is out this week. Do you think they want young kids and families to see videos of a cute Pokémon getting blasted away? No way. Maybe one day they will lighten up? But I don’t think it will ever be for a project like this.
Via Eurogamer
