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Gotta leak ’em all.
A breach affecting Game Freak, the company behind the popular Pokémon franchise, has exposed around 1 TB of data online. Game Freak made the announcement in a notice that was dated Oct. 10. The data was “leaked in connection with unauthorized access to our server by a third party in August 2024,” the company said.
Information in the around 2,600 files affecting employees leaked in the breach included names and company email addresses, Game Freak said. Both company staff and contract workers had their information exposed.
Rocket go. As of this writing, the full content of the files has not been released. But those looking through the information have reported that there are some internal game secrets in the data, including the release dates of several Pokémon game projects, as well as movies and TV shows. Prototype gameplay was also included in the leak. X account Centro Leaks has been disseminating the clips.
Game lore and unreleased stories—some of which, like an odd human-Pokémon hybrid origin tale, were likely never meant to be distributed—have been exposed in the breach.
Most notably, perhaps, is that the Nintendo Switch 2 is in development and expected to be released soon (at least one of the new games has one edition made for the sequel device).
The company wrote that it has taken steps to repair the damage and offered affected employees a hotline to call.
“We have already rebuilt and re-inspected our servers, but we will work to prevent recurrence by further strengthening our security measures,” Game Freak said.