Bionicle: Masks of Power – a fan game that has been in development for eight years – has been shut down following a request from The LEGO Group, its developers claim.
In a statement released to the public via a Google Doc, the team broke down the situation for fans who’ve been waiting to actually play the game after all this time. The devs, who were preparing to drop a demo this August, claim that LEGO reached out to request they shut down development on the project and remove the game from the public eye.
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In the statement, the team expressed its historical intention to keep in line with the official LEGO Fair Play Guidelines, as to not draw the eye of an legal action from LEGO looking to protect its copyright. Despite these intentions, the hammer has seemingly come down. While it says no official reason for the takedown was given, the team suspects that it was because the average person may mistake the game for an official game, rather than a fan project. It seems this fan game was a victim of its own good SEO.
In reaction to the news, the development team has released a walkthrough of the demo, and has decided to form a new indie studio: Unmasked Games. That name is great by the way, hinting towards its Bionicle roots but taking the mask off for future endeavors. They conclude the statement with the following: “This has been heartbreaking news for our entire team, but we’re also incredibly excited about what the future has in store, and for what we’ll get the chance to create next. We hope that you’re all just as excited as we are. For the final time… May the Great Spirit guide you.”
Bionicle has been a dead IP product line since 2010 by the way. That’s the last time any actual toys were produced by The LEGO group. There was a series of comics written by Greg Farshtey, though that has also been dead for over a decade. It’s clear that the Bionicle IP is scorching hot, something LEGO is clearly doing a lot with. Sarcasm aside, such are the ways of legal departments. IP must be protected, even for IP that has had no development or frankly relevancy for over a decade. That is, aside from a relatively small community of fans who were, until very recently, excited for a new fan game. Damn shame!
It’s a bummer. It’s a common belief that the best way to approach making fan games is to “shut the f**k up”, but obviously not all fan project teams have the luxury of silence and a sudden shadow drop before any cease and desist can come through and ruin all the fun. Still, if you were excited for Mask of Power, why not give the folks at Unmasked Games some love, and support them going forward.
We’ve reached out to The LEGO Group for comment, and will update this article if and when we get a response.
When’s the last time you even thought about Bionicle, this fan game aside? Let us know below.