Creatures that remain in the phase of simple preparatory drawings, preliminary versions of graphic elements, working documents that describe the universe, development tools or even source codes of complete games… Since Saturday, October 12, users of the networks Social networks and specialized forums such as ResetEra exchange, comment and analyze files that appear to come from a large data leak suffered by Game Freak, the company behind the main games. Pokémon.
In an official press release, the Japanese studio confirmed on Sunday, October 13, that a security breach had indeed affected its servers. “ Game Freak discovered that our employees’ information was leaked through unauthorized third-party access in August 2024. We sincerely apologize for the great inconvenience and concern this has caused to all concerned. “, declares the company.
The company, which claims to have since closed the breach, estimates that 2,600 names, mailing addresses and email addresses of employees (current and former) or contract workers were compromised. Game Freak, however, does not confirm the veracity of the data about its games currently circulating online and presented as related to this data theft.
More than a terabyte of data claimed
If the large number of files included in the archive put online (internet users who claim to have access to it speak of a terabyte of data) makes systematic verification work practically impossible, for the same reason it is very unlikely that it would have been falsified in its entirety.
There we find, mixed, texts that explore the universe of titles sometimes more than twenty years old, but also working documents related to unpublished games, such as Pokémon Legends: ZA (scheduled for 2025), or the machine that is supposed to succeed the Nintendo Switch, named after its supposed code name. Requested by the worldNintendo has not followed up at this time.
Due to its nature and magnitude, this incident is reminiscent of a similar data leak that Nintendo was a victim of in 2020. Dubbed “Gigaleak” by Internet users, it involved about two terabytes of data spread slowly and anonymously on the 4chan forum. . They contained, among other things, game source codes, prototypes, design documents for old machines from the manufacturer, and employee emails. Without commenting on the content of the files found in the wild, Nintendo publicly acknowledged the existence of security vulnerabilities in this regard.
