Heroes of Hyrule video report receives copyright strike from Nintendo
A "slap in the face for video game history preservation".
Nintendo has wielded its heavy hand once more, this time on popular YouTube channel Did You Know Gaming.
The channel, which frequently reports on trivia from a specific game or franchise, has been issued a takedown notice from Nintendo. This takedown pertains specifically to Did You Know Gaming's video on Heroes of Hyrule - a Zelda game for the Nintendo DS akin to Final Fantasy Tactics, that was pitched to Nintendo by Retro Studios.
In response to this notice, Did You Know Gaming stated it considers this move by Nintendo a "slap in the face for video game history preservation".
"This was a journalistic video documenting a game that Retro Studios pitched to Nintendo nearly 20 years ago," the team wrote.
"This is an attempt by a large corporation to silence whatever journalism they don't like," it closed, imploring everyone to "let Nintendo of America know what you think".
In the meantime, the channel is looking into ways to get its Heroes of Hyrule video restored on YouTube.
Eurogamer has contacted Nintendo for comment.
As a recap, had Nintendo accepted Retro's pitch, Heroes of Hyrule would have told the story of a magical book.
The titular heroes of Hyrule would have been Dunar the Goron (a "gruff, tough fighter" who "embodied the triforce of power"), Seriph the Rito (a "patient [and] warm-hearted rito" who embodied the triforce of courage"), and Krel the Zora (yes, you guessed it, he embodied the Triforce of Wisdom and is described as being "cynical" but with a "warm heart").
The game's prologue would have told the story of a failed attempt by Link to save Princess Zelda from Ganon. Thankfully, the three heroes noticed Link's absence, and rescued him. Following this successful rescue, Ganon would have subsequently retreated into the aforementioned magical book, but in a weakened state.
The heroes would have then all tried to dispose of said book - that Ganon had arrogantly called 'The Book of Ganon'. However they would find it impossible to destroy entirely. To counteract this, the Hylian team instead would have ripped pages out of the book and scattered them across the kingdom in a bid to stop Ganon returning, with Link placing the now incomplete book somewhere in the Kingdom for safe keeping.
Meanwhile, Did You Know Gaming has other Nintendo related videos still live on its channel, including one from earlier this week detailing a pitch (that also happened to be from Retro Studios) for a XCOM-style game starring Samus Aran.