Update 01/24/2022: Well, that didn’t take long. The Pokémon Company has removed almost all videos of a Pokémon hunting FPS that went viral last week.
Spotted by Nintendo Life, The Pokémon Company has removed videos of the fan project from YouTube and Twitter by way of copyright strikes (although videos on Reddit are still available right now). At time of writing, developer Dragon has not publicly commented on the situation, but it’s not a hugely surprising turn of events.
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have both historically sought to shut down fan projects based on their properties, even if they’re non-commercial. In this case, the game wasn’t even publicly available to download, but it seems videos were enough for the lawyers to get involved.
In case you needed to check – though you almost certainly didn’t – an FPS where you hunt Pokémon is just as disturbing in reality as it is a concept.
At the best of times, scrolling through Twitter can be a rollercoaster experience, and the platform certainly has its fair share of ‘things I wish I hadn’t had the displeasure of seeing’. While game developer and Twitter user Dragon has certainly accomplished something unique by making a Pokémon First Person Shooter, it does run the risk of being entered into the aforementioned category.
You can see development footage below, if you’re morbidly curious:
Last month I started working on developing a Pokémon First Person Shooter. #IndieGameDev #pokemon pic.twitter.com/dZZTuYWq22
— Dragon (@Dragon_GameDev2) January 17, 2022
During the trailer for Dragon’s Pokémon-based FPS, a controllable player character can be seen roaming far and wide to claim numerous pocket monster trophies. The game appears to include a wide array of different Pokémon – seemingly all from the original 151 – that you can track down and fill with lead, as well as multiple different weapons to carry out the deed.
To give credit where it’s due, each of the Pokémon in the trailer seems to come with their own signature style of attacks, and boss fights against legendary monsters seem to further vary the action. Across the clip, the hunter fights off a Zapdos, whose electric tornadoes and lightning-style bombing runs definitely provide more of a challenge, while Mewtwo’s psychic blasts are also a sight to see.
However, as is often the case in the wild there are few beasts that stand much of a chance against someone armed to the teeth with projectile weaponry. There’s just something haunting about watching a Pikachu take a shotgun shell square between the eyes before rolling limply to its death.
If you’re made of stronger stuff than us, you can check out a full devlog explaining how Dragon made the project in Unreal Engine on YouTube. Dragon makes clear that the game won’t be sold, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Nintendo won’t take notice of the project – we’ll wait and aee on that one.
While we commend Dragon on the…