Recently, one fan game has gotten a lot of attention within the Pokémon community. This game is Pokémon Uranium. In the past nine years the creators of Uranium have been working quite hard on the game, and recently their work came to completion. On August 6^th 2016 the game saw its full release. The game’s release features game play all the way up to the “Tandor Championship” (The game’s equivalent, of an elite four) and the story’s conclusion.

Soon after, though, the game was taken down from download. On August 13^th 2016, the official Uranium Twitter posted that they had had taken note of official take down notices from lawyers representing Nintendo. The team had not yet been contacted themselves, however they felt that it would be Nintendo’s wishes to remove the game.

They followed this up with a tweet noting that Nintendo had not sent them a C & D, and that it was their own decision to do this.

We have NOT received a Cease & Desist or been contacted by Nintendo or the Pokemon Company. We chose to remove the links ourselves.

— Pokémon Uranium (@PokemonUranium) August 13, 2016

It seemed like the game would be receiving up future updates, even with download links retracted. (The game’s server can manually receive and download patches, without actual download links.) The main game ends with a quest that starts in an unavailable town, as well as there being a few legendary Pokémon still to be added. Fans were waiting to hear any potential news, and a few days ago they did. The Uranium team put out a tweet detailing how the game is no longer going to receive support.

Thanking fans for all the love and positive reception to their game one last time, they concluded their statement.

Pokémon Uranium was a very unique fan game, so it was saddening to many fans to see it go. It took place in the brand new and tropical region of Tandor. Tandor had vast new environments, such as rain forests, that are not usually seen in any official or fan games. The game also introduced nearly two hundred new Pokémon to the game, with unique typings as well as designs. Another unique feature was that the starters had only one stage and were dual typed. They also added Mega Evolutions to the game, for both new and old Pokémon.

The biggest draw to the game however was the introduction of Nuclear Pokémon. These Pokémon are radioactive green and had a new type, the Nuclear Type. This new typing tied into the story of the games and is something fans enjoyed the idea of. This type was a lot like the Shadow Type introduced in Colosseum, in that they are super effective on every type (bar the Steel type which resisted Nuclear-type attacks), and vice versa. This unique type and its role in the plot led to a very fun experience for those who downloaded the game and is a defining part of it.

It is unknown what exactly is the cause for the sudden halting of development on Uranium, whether it be legal action or a choice made solely by the creators. However the creators can be proud of their work. Over the course of nine years, they managed to complete their idea for a Pokémon fan game and deliver something truly special to the fans. Even though the game is shut down, the community that is still very active and will continue to enjoy the fan game and carry on its future. Any creator should feel accomplished about the fact that they created such a positive community with an idea that all started nine years ago.

What do you think of this announcement by the Pokémon Uranium developers?

Edited by 5qwerty, Altairis and bobandbill.