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Fans React to Massive Pokémon Leak’s Creepy Rejected Designs

Fans React to Massive Pokémon Leak’s Creepy Rejected Designs







 The Pokémon Company

Game Freak, the company behind the popular “Pokémon” games, fell victim to a massive hack over the weekend, resulting in what some are already calling a “mega-leak.” In total, the hacker posted about a terabyte of Game Freak’s internal files onto the Internet. The leak quickly gained widespread attention on social media, with fans and archivists sharing various tidbits of information left and right. After sifting through the data, fans have discovered that the company has (or had) tentative plans for remakes of older games, a theatrical animated film, and live-action sequels to Detective Pikachu, and even rumors of Gen 10 debuting in the sequel from the Nintendo Switch (which, as it turns out, has the strange internal codename “Ounce”). While some of these leaks sound like a dream come true, The most interesting “Pokémon” leaks are more like nightmares.

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Perhaps more than anything else here, players were drawn to the plethora of rejected Pokémon designs that make up a large portion of the leaked data. While there are of course plenty of early sprites for Pokémon that were redesigned before their official debut, there are also a number of truly eerie designs for Pokémon that never made it past the prototype stage. And to be honest, some of these designs are absolutely horrifying. As one fan on [Game Freak] have created real HORROR creatures for their games.

Leaked Pokémon are pure nightmare fuel

Thanks to several long threads from @CentroLeaks on X, Fans got a closer look at a number of Pokémon that were left on the cutting room floor, and many of them are absolutely haunting. For example, a creature that appears to be an early version of Rayquaza has a sickly, flesh-like color palette and razor-sharp teeth, while the original concept art for Cacturne looks like something that would slink through the foggy streets of “Silent Hill.” – a far cry from the spiky but cute Pokémon we eventually got.

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Other designs include a steel spider-crab hybrid with black beady eyes and visible joints, and a misshapen rock monster covered in runes reminiscent of Gen 2’s Unown. The former proved so annoying that one commenter simply said, “How bruh??? This is NOT a Pokemon.”

One of the more eye-catching creations is a seemingly electric dog Pokémon that features a forked tongue, a gaseous midsection, and essentially an exposed nervous system on its legs. For some, the strange design of this creature’s limbs and torso has brought back memories of the classic (and controversial) book series Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

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It remains to be seen how many rejected Pokémon will be found in the leaked files, but one thing is certain: Game Freak’s design team has been toning down its darker urges for decades at this point. Fans of these designs are already begging The Pokémon Company and Nintendo to release a full-fledged horror title. Meanwhile, Game Freak seems to be trying to put the genie back in the bottle as quickly as possible.

Game Freak is involved in the case


Detective Pikachu on the hunt
Warner Bros. Pictures

Many fans assumed that Nintendo and Game Freak would try to sweep this incident under the rug or ignore it entirely, presumably in the hope that fans would think the leaked documents were fake. However, The developer behind the “Pokémon” game series was actually ahead of the news. In a statement to employees released on October 10 (translated via Nintendo Everything), the company wrote: “Game Freak Inc. … has discovered that personal information of employees and others has been compromised in connection with unauthorized access to our server by one … were leaked to third parties in August 2024. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and concern caused to everyone involved.”

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It’s unclear how Game Freak and Nintendo plan to go about combating this leak, but fans online are already suspecting that the perpetrator of this attack is in big trouble. After all, Nintendo has a well-documented history of suing anyone who threatens its intellectual property, and in recent years hackers have been sentenced to harsh prison sentences for tampering with gaming companies.