Pokémon fan game site shuts down after nearly a decade, following takedown notice
Doom and Gloom.
A long-running website for Pokémon fan game enthusiasts has shut down after being served a DMCA takedown notice.
Relic Castle was a repository and forum for makers and players of Pokémon fan games, and had gained over 20,000 members in almost 10 years. In a statement posted to X, the Relic Castle website revealed it was served a takedown notice, which it has now complied with.
Navigating to the Relic Castle website now shows the website has been stripped of all of its resources, other than the statement on the home page.
"It is with heavy heart that I announce that the Relic Castle website has been taken down following a DMCA takedown notice," reads the statement. "Relic Castle has always been a non-profit, ad-free, tight-knit community," it continues.
In an FAQ shared on reddit and Discord, Relic Castle asked members not to contact The Pokémon Company International. "It was a third-party who is authorised by [The Pokémon Company International] to supply DMCAs and looks legitimate to us," it wrote. It also revealed the DMCA notice was for the whole site, not an individual game, for using "unauthorised copies of copyrighted material".
Relic Castle downloaded a backup of the website before it was taken down, a site moderator revealed on Discord, who said nothing from the site was "truly lost".
The Pokémon Company has been increasingly hunting down any material using Pokémon, including mods for non-Pokémon games. In January, YouTuber ToastedShoes created a Pokémon mod for "Pokémon with guns" success Palworld, which was scrubbed from the internet by Nintendo a day later. Yesterday, a seven-year-old YouTube video which included a Pokémon mod for Call of Duty: Zombies was taken down by The Pokémon Company.
Earlier this month, a former Pokémon lawyer revealed the company's strategy for finding fan projects to strike down - look for media coverage.