Pokémon Uranium, a fan-made game featuring 150 new Pokémon, a new region, and more responsive menus, is no longer available through the developer's website.
The development team issued a statement yesterday expressing their reluctance to continue making the game available after several sites hosting the game received takedown notices from Nintendo. "While we have not personally been contacted," the statement reads, "it's clear what their wishes are, and we respect those wishes deeply. Therefore, we will no longer provide official download links for the game through our website."
The statement also warns fans of downloading the game from third-party sites. "We have no connection to fans who reupload the game files to their own hosts, and we cannot verify that those download links are all legitimate. We advise you to be extremely cautious about downloading the game from unofficial sources."
Finally, the team thanks fans who have already downloaded the game. "We are blown away by the response this game has received, and we thank you all so much for your outstanding support."
Correction: This story previously made it sound as though the developers of the game themselves had received a takedown notice. This was not the case. We have corrected that language and apologize for our mistake.
[Source: Pokémon Uranium official website.]
Our Take
Considering Nintendo also took down the recent Metroid II remake this week, another takedown of a fan game isn't too surprising. It's legally within Nintendo's power to make sure these games don't propagate, but this can't be helping their reputation with fans.