PokeRogue is the most popular Pokémon fan game of 2024, but it seems that its development has hit a bit of a snag. The game's creator has pulled out just two months after its launch.
PokeRogue has received HUGE updates!
PokeRogue launched on March 11th and quickly became one of the rising stars of the Pokémon community, boasting hundreds of thousands of daily players and a huge rise in the content scene for creators and streamers alike. And while PokeRogue still has plenty of new features and updates, the game does have an ending thanks to the work of its development team. However, that team is losing one of its pillars as Samuel “FlashfyreDev” is stepping down from the game now that the finale is over.
On May 16th, Sam announced that he would be stepping down as lead developer for PokeRogue, with the release of the ending sequence in a new update. This came as a shock to many, as Sam has been the primary voice communicating development decisions and timelines, server status updates, and more since the fan game launched, but his reasoning actually stems from that – because he was devoting so much time to the project.
"For nine months I was working on the game as a solo developer and it didn't really get much attention outside of small circles…" Sam said. "Recently it's become incredibly popular and a lot has happened. It went from being a mostly solo project to a community project. I went from desperately looking for extra help and not getting it, to an overwhelming amount of people wanting to contribute to the game without any compensation. I've truly exceeded my wildest expectations and thank you all for being a part of that.