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Pokemon developer Game Freak has suffered an enormous leak, leading to a massive amount of supposed information about both old and upcoming Pokemon games surfacing online, and it's now claimed that the source codes of Legends: Z-A and the unannounced 10th generation games are out in the wild.
We know quite little about Pokemon Legends: Z-A, apart from the fact that it'll be set in X and Y's iconic Lumiose City, but we know even less about Gen 10, namely because – from an official standpoint – nothing has been said to even imply that it exists. Of course, following Scarlet and Violet kicking off the ninth generation in 2022, it was only ever going to be a matter of time until the next iterations were upon us, but I don't think anyone was expecting to find out anything about them in a way like this. From this wave of supposedly leaked information, it's been claimed that Gen 10 is codenamed Gaia, so make of that what you will, but rumors that its source code has breached containment are sure to be far more concerning for the developers.
Source code holds the very essence of how a game runs – there's a reason most developers don't release their games' source codes publicly. In this case, for it to be allegedly out there for a game we haven't seen any gameplay footage of, and for a concept that's not even been announced, would be considered catastrophic.
It's worth keeping in mind that with this surge of leaks, there's bound to be plenty of fake leaks and claims, too. At the time of writing, there doesn't appear to be any hard evidence of the source codes being out there, although there are whispers that the person who supposedly got hold of them is purposely withholding spoilers until the games' respective releases.
Game Freak shared a statement (translated by Google) last Thursday, October 10, acknowledging that there'd been a leak of personal information about its employees following "unauthorized access to our server by a third party in August 2024." Notably, however, the statement doesn't refer to any information about its games being leaked, so the company doesn't seem to have confirmed or denied that any of the rumored information is real. Where things go from here, and what the consequences of the leak will be remains to be seen.
Be sure to check out our ranking of the best Pokemon games while you're here.
