Pokémon Uranium is a Massive Fan Game That Just Released After Nine Years of Development

Hungry for a full Pokémon game and can’t wait for November’s release of Sun and Moon? Then you might want to check out Pokémon Uranium. Developed mostly by two fans, known as JV and Involuntary Twitch, over the course of nine years, Pokémon Uranium released recently and is completely free to download. The game takes place in a new region, Tandor, which is divided into the mountainous West Tandor and the mostly oceanic East Tandor.

Pokémon Uranium boasts more than 150 brand new, completely original Pokémon to catch, alongside returning Pokémon from the main games. Pokémon Uranium is meant to be a throwback to the classic Pokémon games, and visually is somewhere between the look of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.

Pokémon Uranium has three possible protagonists the player can choose from: Victor, Natalie and Pluto. In a nice touch towards inclusivity, Victor is male, Natalie is female and Pluto is gender-neutral. The story follows one of these trainers ten years after an accident at a nuclear power plant led to the death of their mother, a scientist working there. Now, in Tandor, a new and mysterious nuclear power plant has been constructed on top of the old one and Pokémon are becoming infected with radiation, threatening the region’s populace and other Pokémon. Of course, there’s still the classic eight gyms’ badges to collect. There’s even online trading and battling.

The sheer scale of this game approaches that of a full Pokémon game, astounding given that the developers, JV and Involuntary Twitch, made this for free in their spare time. You can download the game at PokemonUranium.com and you can see the game’s release trailer below. You may want to download the game soon, though, as Nintendo is not known for being kind towards fan projects.