Fan-Made Pokemon Uranium Game Shutdown After 1.5 Million Downloads

Hands down, Pokemon should win a 'Comeback of the Year' Award. The franchise has taken over the world following the release of Pokemon GO, and the upcoming debut of Pokemon Sun and Moon promises to remind gamers why they fell in love with pocket monsters years ago. Lots of fans are falling back in love with the franchise, but for some, that affection never died. Take for example the team of fans-slash-developers who spent nine years creating Pokemon Uranium. Clearly, their Pokemon journey never really ended.

Well, until now, that is. Shortly after the project's debut, Nintendo has demanded it be taken down.

Pokemon Uranium was released only days ago, but in that time, fans everywhere came to praise the game's authentic and refreshing gameplay. The title closely mirrored that of official 3DS Pokemon games, and while Uranium contained several original Pokemon, the fan-project also used 150 brand-new creatures which developers made from scratch. The developers' passion for the game was easy to see, so really, it's no surprise that Uranium racked up more than 1.5 million downloads before Nintendo stepped in.

Having received "multiple takedown notices" from the company, Uranium's developers decided to respect Nintendo's wishes and removed the game. While no one was personally threatened with a lawsuit, the development team doesn't want to incur any potential legal battles over their project. They even went so far as to say they had no "connections to fans who reupload the game files," something which many gamers have already started doing.

While fans can understand Nintendo's decision to protect their intellectual properties, it's still a huge bummer to see Uranium go. This take-down marks yet another fan-project pulled by Nintendo as a popular fan-remake of Metroid II was taken down just recently.

Maybe, if fans are lucky, Nintendo might take a few notes from the fan-made game and continue bettering everything that makes Pokemon great. I mean, let's be real: Nuclear type pokemon are the bomb - pun totally intended.

If you're curious about what the game looked like, the team did upload a Pokemon Uranium game trailer to Youtube. Feel free to check it out below and wonder about everything that could've been.