This article was originally written for TheNintendoVillage.com, a website I founded and ran from 2018 to 2021.

Cooking Mama: Cookstar arrived on the US eShop last week, but it’s now disappeared almost as suddenly as it arrived. This is just the latest twist in a rather bizarre tale.

IGN’s Joe Skrebels did some digging to find out just what has been going on with the game, unearthing developer name changes, leaked trailers, developers that may or may not exist, and generally uncovering more questions than answers.

One area that cropped up was an older press release about the game that suggested it would feature blockchain technology, leading to speculation that the game was being used as a way to mine cryptocurrency from users’ Switches. Gaming journo Ryan Brown managed to contact the developers who denied that’s the case:

I managed to contact the Cooking Mama: Cookfest developers regarding the delisting and mining claims:

“As the developers we can say with certainty there is no cryptocurrency or data collection or blockchain or anything else shady in the code.” (1/2)
— Ryan Brown 🎮: 🦝🚸 & 😈🔫 (@Toadsanime) April 5, 2020

This is borne out by dataminers who have managed to get hold of physical copies of the game as it was released by certain retailers during the game’s launch - whether that was an official one or not. They’ve scoured the game’s code and found no trace of the blockchain stuff, despte it being touted in that 2019 press release:

UPDATE 2 : we have worked with a user who has a physical copy and can at first appearances confirm the following: thanks @mmofallout

Game works offline

Game works without a linked user acc

Game works on a formatted console

Currency and blockchain appears removed pic.twitter.com/arsXwcaHWl
— DoesItPlay - please stay at home 💕 (@DoesItPlay1) April 5, 2020

I keep seeing rumours about there being a cryptominer in Cooking Mama: Cookstar, and due to its inclusion, it was pulled from the eShop.
After some RE work, I can safely say there is no cryptominer/blockchain stuff anywhere within Cooking Mama: Cookstar's code.
— SimonTime (@itssimontime) April 5, 2020

Needless to say, there’s some strange goings on with Cooking Mama: Cookstar. We’ll keep an eye on the situation and let you know if things get any clearer.

Source: IGN, Twitter