Pokémon developer faces major data leak

By Adi Robertson , a senior tech and policy editor focused on VR, online platforms, and free expression. Adi has covered video games, biohacking, and more for The Verge since 2011.

Hackers released a collection of leaked data from Pokémon game developer Game Freak over the weekend, including personal information about employees. Game Freak — which develops the main lineup of Pokémon video games — confirmed the breach in a statement, saying (per a machine translation from Japanese) that it was the result of “unauthorized access to our servers by a third party” and dated back to August of 2024.

Game Freak said the leaked personal information — which it characterizes as names and company email addresses — included around 2,600 items. As Polygon notes, however, the breach appears to include much more than employee information. Redditors and others say they’ve unearthed source code from previous games as well as unused pokémon designs and other things that were scrapped during the development process of those games. They’ve allegedly found more limited detail about future projects, including some codenames for future games.

There are no apparent reports of direct leaks from the other companies involved in Pokémon as part of this breach, including Nintendo, Creatures Inc., and the jointly owned Pokémon Company.

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