Nintendo Victim of Major Leak. 1 TB of Data Stolen from Pokemon Series Creators
Teraleak is 1 TB of data from the Game Freak studio, and even the modest amount of information disclosed revealed quite a bit about the past and future of the Pokemon series.
Creators of the Pokemon series suffered a gigantic data leak. The hacker managed to steal about 1 TB of data from Game Freak and has already shared some of the obtained information.
Formally, the leak was supposed to have occurred in August 2024, but only now has the information surfaced online and the developer published a statement confirming the data theft.
Switch 2 and 1 TB of Pokemon data
In its statement, the studio focused only on the employee data that was leaked, but this is not what sparked the greatest emotions (and controversy). The leak contains information not only about over 2.6 thousand Game Freak employees and the studio's old games (for now, mainly 3rd, 4th and 5th generation Pokemon games ), but also about emerging projects. The news has been making rounds on social media thanks to groups including CentroLeaks and PokeLeaks, and all of the information so far has been collected on Pokeos.
In fact, among the data that appeared on the web there was the codename of the new Nintendo console (Ounce). This is the platform planned for the 10th generation of Pokemon games, mentioned in the leak under the working name Gaia. There is also a mention of Synapse, a title with MMO elements co-created with another studio.
This is followed by the aforementioned information about 3rd - 5th gen. Pokemon games, some intriguing (including creature designs, some of which could give you nightmares), but a bit controversial in places.
Discretion from A-Z
As usual, the fans are divided about the leak. Of course, all fans of "pocket monsters" are intrigued, because "Teraleak" (as some players called this incident) includes information about the behind-the-scenes of the development and the concept of the Pokemon world story background and lore.
Nevertheless, for Game Freak and Nintendo, it is a disaster at least on the scale of a similar leak from 2020, which is still one of the biggest in video game history (and aptly named "Gigaleak"). What's worse, the studio has recently gained the sympathy of the fans due to the decision to extend the development time of the next Pokemon games. This, as players hope after Nintendo's declarations, will guarantee a higher quality of X-generation games (which, in part, has already been shown in the Scarlet / Violet duo).
What's worse, what we've seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg. Since the leak appeared, fans discovered materials from 6th gen Pokemon games and new feature movies, and the source code of an early version of Pokemon Legends: ZA allegedly fell into the hands of the hacker (via Reddit). If the Grand Theft Auto VI leak was devastating for employee morale at Rockstar, then "Teraleak" is a nuclear disaster for the developers at Game Freak. Hence probably the declarations about "minimizing security gaps" after the August break-in.
Indeed, the hacker had declared that he would not reveal too much about the studio's upcoming games (apart from what also relates to the anime series), but even without this, Game Freak has no reasons to be satisfied.
Employee targeted by Nintendo ninja?
How did the leak happen? We do not have official information, but the content of the leak suggests that one of the Game Freak employees fell victim to so-called "phishing", using his work email address on other websites. Some internet users and journalists speculate that in fact there were two break-ins, i.e. the data obtained in August was used to steal a larger amount of data in October. This would explain about a 2-month gap and the data leaking only now.
Many fans, more or less seriously, sympathize with the employee who - according to an old meme - was supposedly targeted by the "Nintendo ninja" squads. Even if his employer turned out to be more merciful, the developer probably did not have a successful and peaceful start to the week.
