Nintendo must use the Eternal Darkness trademark or lose it

Nintendo’s strength has always been developing family friendly games, and they recently admitted that the marketing focus for the 2013 festive period was children and their parents. This focus on a family audience may need to take a backseat for at least one project if Nintendo don’t wish to lose the trademark of one of their most popular GameCube era franchises.

Eternal Darkness was developed by former Nintendo second party developer Silicon Knights, and released on the GameCube after starting life as a Nintendo 64 title. Fans have long wanted there to be a follow up, but the prospect of this happening seemed unlikely after Nintendo and Silicon Knights parted ways after the release of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.

Hopes were raised that a spiritual successor to the game titled Shadow Of The Eternals would come out after several of the original games developers tried to raise money for the project though crowd funding. The high target weren’t met and that project appears to be dead in the water.

A document from The United States Patent and Trademark Office has emerged which reveals that Nintendo have been given six months in which to file a statement of use of the Eternal Darkness trademark or risk losing it. They may file for extensions a total of five times, giving them a total of thirty six months to use the Eternal Darkness trademark or they will forfeit it.

With so few Wii U exclusives being targeted towards a mature audience a sequel would certainly be welcomed by many gamers. It is perhaps more likely that Nintendo may choose to release the game either as a HD remake or Virtual Console title as after ten plus years since the original game many of today’s gamers would need to be introduced to the series before buying a sequel.