It’s an ongoing thing where fans of Nintendo games painstakingly create original games using assets from real Nintendo games, only to get their project shut down later by Nintendo. The latest game, a Legend of Zelda project, has been shut down as well.
The fan-made project was titled The Missing Link, and it was built within the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time engine using assets from both Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, with an original story set between both games. Prominent Super Mario modder Kaze Emanuar was heading the project, but has now had its website and trailers taken down by Nintendo.
The Missing Link’s github page was taken down as well, with Nintendo’s copyright complaint noting the company “has reviewed the reported material and does not believe it qualifies as a fair use of Nintendo’s copyright-protected work.” The fan game featured a brand new world, new dungeons, new cutscenes, and a new story as well.
With how copyright law typically works, once things aren’t considered fair use, a copyright holder must shut down potential digs at their copyrighted work, otherwise their original copyrighted property loses value and could eventually be challenged. This all involves lawyers and as expected – gets very expensive and hard to debate.
What do you think about fan-made games reusing copyrighted assets from existing games? Should they be considered fair use, or not? Is it ok for fan-games like this to exist so long as they don’t sell them? Sound off in the comments below!
