Impressive Fan-Made Pokemon RPG Released After 9 Years [UPDATE: REMOVED]

[UPDATE] The creators of Pokemon Uranium have removed all download links for the game. In a statement posted on the game's website, developers said they have not been personally contacted by Nintendo's lawyers, but are taking the game down out of respect for the rights-holders.

Pokemon Uranium reached more than 1.5 million downloads.

Here is the full statement:

"After receiving more than 1,500,000 downloads of our game, we have been notified of multiple takedown notices from lawyers representing Nintendo of America. While we have not personally been contacted, 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. 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.

"We are blown away by the response this game has received, and we thank you all so much for your outstanding support. We will continue to provide Pokemon Uranium-related news and updates through our official channels. You are welcome to continue discussing and sharing content related to the game on our forums and Discord, where there is a very active community.

"Thank you for reading, and let's share the love of Pokemon!"

The original story is below.

A fan-made Pokemon RPG has finally been released for PC after almost a decade in development.

Pokemon Uranium consists of the usual Red/Blue formula, but introduces a lot of new things, including the region of Tandor, more than 150 Pokemon, and a Nuclear type. The goal of the game is to "recapture the classic Pokemon experience" with some twists. You can see many of the new Pokemon in the trailer below, which was released in July.

The game is now available for free to download from the Uranium website and does not require an emulator. It's available for PC, with a Mac version still to come. As of this writing, the site is down due to the sheer amount of attention it's been getting now that the project has been released, according to a tweet.

Uranium appears to be an incredibly impressive project, which makes what seems like the inevitable cease-and-desist letter from Nintendo and The Pokemon Company so unfortunate. The website and videos make it clear that Uranium is a not-for-profit fan project unaffiliated with the official Pokemon brand.

But as we've seen time and again, that has little bearing on lawyers deciding to shut down these types of fan-made games. Another impressive project, a remake of Metroid II called Project AM2R, was recently released and quickly served with DMCA takedown notices. According to a blog post on August 9, its creator had not received a cease-and-desist letter, but the DMCA requests has forced the game to essentially go underground. That may end up being the fate of Uranium as well.