Fan-made Breath of the NES Gets Hit with Takedown from Nintendo

To no one’s surprise, the fan-made game Breath of the NES, based on a 2D Breath of the Wild prototype has been hit with a copyright claim from Nintendo.

Breath of the NES’s designer Winterdrake took inspiration from the 2D prototype Nintendo showcased at GDC 2017. The prototype was only playable by the Breath of the Wild development team, as it was used to test the open world and features for the full game. Winterdrake thought a 2D Zelda with the extensive world and interactive mechanics of Breath of the Wild sounded too good to forget, so he set to work.

Though Winterdrake released a couple demo versions of Breath of the NES, the full game was not released before the inevitable Nintendo takedown, which arrived in the form of a complaint from a Nintendo of America attorney, citing its copyright to The Legend of Zelda and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

Before the copyright claim from Nintendo, Winterdrake responded to questions of legal issues by stating, “I do plan to continue development with my own original characters. I’m having way too much fun creating this world to just give up.”

Though the game has been removed for now, the designer seems as motivated as ever, saying, “the project will come back bigger and better than ever.” And he’s looking to change more than just some names for copyright purposes. He has plans to make this a massive, immersive game with nostalgically beautiful animations.

You can follow the progress of Breath of the NES–new title to be determined–on Winterdrake’s Twitter account. Looks like he’s moving away from the NES 8-bit graphics and dabbling in a more complex pixel art style for the game.

Were you only interested in this fan-made game when it was classic 8-bit Zelda, or are you still excited to see what Winterdrake does with this world? Let us know in the comments.