In a recent episode of the Kit and Krysta podcast—a podcast dedicated to talking about video games—former employees at the Nintendo of Americas claimed that The Pokémon Company considers Nuzlocke runs to be “on the same level as using a hacked game, ROM hacks…”
According to the ex-Nintendo employees, they made the suggestion for an episode of “Nintendo Minute.” However, the idea of doing a Nuzlocke run apparently did not sit well with The Pokémon Company.
They mentioned that upon pitching their idea, they genuinely thought they would get fired. They also cited that “a lot of creators that played Nuzlocke for a style of Pokémon that got erased from their Trainer Programs.”
Unsurprisingly, the initial responses from the Pokémon community were mostly negative.
True enough, the concept of Nuzlocke runs is a big part of the Pokémon gaming community. It even has its own subreddit where players can share their runs.
Anyone who’s ever played any Pokémon game knows that the series isn’t really known for its difficulty. The main story run-throughs of these games are often too easy for most fans (except maybe for the Necrozma boss fight in Sun and Moon/Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon). Hence, the need for Nuclozke runs arose, which offer a more challenging experience to hardcore players.
However, The Pokémon Company denies the claims according to Joe Merrick, the webmaster of the popular Pokémon fansite, Serebii.net. According to Joe Merrick in a recent tweet, the company released an official statement about that issue.
Most fans have found the claim by Kit and Krysta absurd, so we can’t blame The Pokémon Company for immediately issuing a statement for clarification.