Updated 03-07-2025 at 17:13 BST: An “incomplete version” of Legends: Arceus' source code has reportedly been posted online since this article went live.
Summary
Earlier this month,Pokemon developer Game Freak was the victim of a historic hackas decades-old data was leaked online, giving us a peek behind the curtain at one of the most lucrative franchises in history.
A lot has been shared, fromthe creation myth of the Pokemon universetostories about Pokemon ‘relations’ with humansand cut concepts likeSouth Kalos. But one of the most prominent users leaking this information online, Centro, claimed that things would finally slow down after October 19. That didn’t happen.
Leaks surfaced ofa cancelled WarioWare-style gameandan unannounced multiplayer projectonly yesterday, along with the revelation that the hacker has the source code for Pokemon X/Y and Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. Centro followed this up with a taunt aimed directly at Nintendo and The Pokemon Company following the copyright strikes against all uploaded images and videos from the leaks, saying “I think you have bigger problems at hand”.
This jab came with two screenshots attached of Game Freak’s GitLab. For context, GitLab houses all of the developer’s projects, including the series' battle logic, research and development data, what appears to be a schedule for future games (“pokemon_production”), source code, and a whole lot more. Game Freak said that the hacker lost access in August, but how much they were able to download before then is still unknown.
What We Do Know - The Source Code Leaks
These screenshots lift the curtain on how catastrophic the hack really was. The leaker gained access to GameFreak’s internal development, which means access to source code not just for old games, but unreleased ones too — a disaster for any developer.
We don’t know the full severity of the breach yet, but Centro revealed that they have the source code for “the Switch games”. It’s unclear what exactly that means, whether it entailsallPokemon games on Switch or just the mainline entries, but we do know that they at least downloaded the source code forLet’s Goand the most recent release,Scarlet and Violet.
The hacker also gained access to older games such as Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, X/Y, HeartGold and SoulSilver, and Black and White 2. But this new post from Centro, with images provided directly by the hacker, teases that there might be more than we expected. Through Game Freak’s GitLab, they were privy to 857 projects, 732 users, and 97 groups. That is a huge amount of data, so maybe things aren’t slowing down nearly as much as we thought.
