A Long Prison Sentence Beckons if New Pokemon Leak Is True (and Plenty of High Quality Clones)
Game Freak's current tough time keeps going, as hackers get loads of vital Pokemon data.
- After Rockstar and Insomniac, Game Freak has been suffering from a massive hack.
- The company has lost tons of data to the hackers.
- Hackers claimed to have the source codes for Pokemon games.
Hackers are a serious problem that often bothers games and game developers. These cheaters illegally access and leak data from the developers to create some mess. This issue has been bothering developers for decades, and recently, one of the most popular Nintendo-exclusive gaming series, Pokemon, has been suffering from this problem.
Pokemon developer Game Freak already admitted that the company went through a massive data hack where the hackers downloaded information about hundreds of projects, employees, and other vital aspects. The latest updates are showing that most Pokemon data has been hacked, including codes for upcoming projects.
Game Freak Has Been Suffering From a Historical Hack That Has Startled the Gaming World
Data hacks are nothing new in the gaming world. A lot of renowned developers have gone through this problem. If you remember, just two years ago, in 2022, Rockstar suffered from a similar incident where hackers accessed and leaked footage of GTA 6. Last year, Insomniac Games also suffered through the same trouble.
Earlier this month, Game Freak suffered through the same issue when hackers started leaking core information about the Pokemon series, including the creation of the Pokemon universe and the stories related to Pokemon having a love relationship with humans.
The leaks also brought to light a canceled WarioWare-style game and another multiplayer project that hasn’t yet been announced. Along with these two leaks, the hackers claimed that they had the source code for Pokemon X/Y and Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire.
A renowned leaker, Centro LEAKS, posted two screenshots of Game Freak’s GitLab and mentioned that Nintendo and Game Freak have “bigger problems at hand.”
If you are unsure why it’s so serious, Game Freak’s GitLab is the hub where all the development data of the current and future projects is generally stored. Though the company claimed that the hacker lost access in August, how much information they downloaded is the main concern at this point.
The Situation Seems to Be More Severe Than Game Freak Initially Revealed
While Game Freak was busy with other things, like suing Palworld with Nintendo for its similarities with Pokemon, hackers were doing their work effectively, and each leak bore the evidence that they had much more crucial data in stock than what they had already revealed.
Previously, the hackers claimed to have the full Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire and Scarlet and Violet source codes, and for other Switch games as well. On October 22, after several other leaked updates by the hackers, Centro LEAKS posted that they had “an incomplete version of Pokémon Legends Arceus source code.”
It would be a complete disaster for the company if the hackers got the complete source codes for the games. It’s illegal for sure, but with the help of these codes, they will be able to create Pokemon-like games with improved in-game avatars. This not only impacts the exclusivity of Nintendo but also affects the quality of the games.
Though it’s still unclear whether they received all the source codes or not, the scenario is indeed catastrophic for Game Freak. Especially when the GitHub image showed that they had accessed the internal development data of the company, and that definitely contains loads of vital source codes and other information.
With the leaks containing data for decade-old games, it looks like things will go further than the company or anyone else had thought.
