Pokémon Co. not a fan of nuzlocke challenges

Depending on big of a Pokémon fan you are, you may have never heard of a nuzlocke challenge. While nuzlocke challenges aren’t an official part of any Pokémon game, the setup has become extremely popular in the Pokémon community in recent years. Just in case you don’t know, a nuzlocke is a playthrough of a Pokémon game with several self-imposed rules.

Countless streamers have taken on various nuzlocke challenges in Pokémon games, as they’re a great way to create compelling content and bring in viewers. That’s why the team behind Nintendo Minute, Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang, thought they could do a nuzlocke challenge for an episode of the show. Surprisingly, Pokémon Co. was extremely against the idea.

In a recent episode of the Kit and Krysta podcast, the former Nintendo employees revealed that their pitch for a nuzlocke challenge episode elicited quite a negative response from the Pokémon Co. You can see Ellis’ comments on the matter below.

“Well, we have a great story to tell about this where we thought that this would be a fun idea for a Nintendo Minute video, so we pitched it to The Pokemon Company and said, ‘Hey, we would like to do a nuzlocke run, what do you think?’ ‘Here’s what we think’ – bam! So they said, ‘We consider this to be on the same level as using hacking’ – ROM hacks.

Excuse me? This is just the style of playing a game that everybody can buy – there’s no hacking, you’re just playing the game. That was truly one of the more like, ‘wait what?’ responses.”

[Kit Ellis]

Obviously, if Pokémon Co. lumps in nuzlocke challenges with ROM hacks, there’s no way in hell they’d want that content featured in a Nintendo Minute. It does seem like Pokémon Co. is being extremely harsh for a setup that has absolutely nothing to do with hacks at all, but as you know, Pokémon Co. operates in mysterious ways!

For what it’s worth, Joe Merrick of Serebii.net says the above information has been misconstrued in some way. Merrick says he’s spoken to The Pokémon Co. International about this matter, and they “don’t care as long as you follow the confines of what’s possible in the game.” Merrick believes what happened with Kit and Krysta was a miscommunication, but with that said, the end result is still the same.