Images have been circulating online, too. Social media is full of screengrabs apparently showing speculative, in-house lore text surrounding the origins of the Pokémon universe. Without going into explicit detail, these extracts lean heavily into mythological tropes which involve human/animal interactions and transformations, capricious acts of violence, and even, most disturbingly, sexual assault. The Greek pantheon would fit into this universe very well, it seems, if any of this improbable material made it into actual Pokémon canon.
We won’t reproduce the text here, but given the child-friendly nature of the Pokémon franchise, it’s probably not the sort of fare The Pokémon Company is happy to see out in the wild. For Pokémon theorists, it’s certainly an intriguing glimpse behind the scenes, and for anyone who only ever thought of the series as a cute, colourful monster-catcher-and-battler, the name ‘Game Freak’ never seemed so apt.
For the dev and The Pokémon Company, it’s an embarrassing situation, and one that has more serious consequences than incredulous reactions from anyone who’s ever caught an Octillery. As acknowledged by the company, the leak contained “2,606” pieces of personal data related to employees and contractors past and present, so protecting its staff must be the primary concern. That is far and away the most potentially damaging consequence here.
it’s an embarrassing situation, and one that has more serious consequences than incredulous reactions from anyone who’s ever caught an Octillery.
For the company itself, though, will this Pokémon leak have any lasting, damaging effect on the wider franchise? It seems unlikely. Source code to the DS games will be of interest to modders, historians, and hobbyists, but it’s unlikely to have any massive effect in piracy terms. The R4 ship sailed a long, long time ago.
The build of Legends: Z-A that’s allegedly in the wild will be concerning to The Pokémon Company, but again, you could argue that fans desperate to get their hands on that aren’t likely to buy legit copies when the game releases anyway. That’s a much larger topic for another day, but the bottom line is that we can’t imagine it hurting TPC’s bottom line when Z-A launches next year.
Leaks around upcoming plans are also unlikely to affect the wider Pokémon community — the people who think Pikachu’s cute and play the games but don’t deep-dive into the internet’s depths for every last detail. There are always leaks surrounding Pokémon releases if you know where to look, and with TPC’s legal eagles circling on high, you’d imagine that any potential Gen 10 dex details will remain underground. And the fact that Game Freak appears to be developing a next-gen Pokémon game for Switch 2 should come as a surprise to precisely nobody.
And those speculative lore writings? For certain hardcore corners of Pokémon fandom, that text like this exists within the walls of Game Freak itself is the biggest shock. But as with any big series, the internet is full of very creative Pokémon fanfiction and art which makes the developer’s own unpublished musings feel fairly mundane by comparison.
So then, while The Pokèmon Company will be keen to flush this embarrassing episode down your news feed as quickly as possible, with Pokémon GO trailers showing not-Walter White enjoying the new Gigantamax feature and announcements of a new Beast Ball replica, it seems unlikely that there’ll be any significant commercial fallout from this leak. Assuring the safety of its staff and the security of personal data is the key challenge and takeaway for Game Freak here; Pikachu and co. will be just fine.
And guess what? News flash: the world and concept of Pokémon is a bit weird. It’s been eye-opening to see just how much weirder it could be, though.