A month ago, a Pokémon fan game with nine years of development got shut down by Nintendo. The creators didn’t seem particularly sad about it, though: over a million people downloaded the game, and the devs planned to continue supporting it for those people. But now, that’s changing.
The Pokémon Uranium developers have announced that they are ceasing further updates on the fan game, and that they are shutting down the online functionality that previously allowed players to do things like trade monsters with one another. It’s unclear on whether this is due to a mandate by Nintendo, but we reached out to the Uranium developers and will update this post if we hear back.
Just a month ago the developers said that, despite takedown, the project was “more alive than ever.” To wit, I downloaded the game after it was technically shut down, and was still able to Wonder Trade with other players. Damn.
Update 9/22 9:35 AM: While official development may be ending, fans say they’re going to pick it up in the dev’s stead. We’ll keep you updated on whether or not the initiative goes anywhere. (H/T Cody)