Pokemon hack – masses of employee data and more stolen from game developer

Pokemon developer Game Freak has been hit by a large-scale hack that is currently seeing thousands of its assets dumped on the internet, including personal details of former and current employees as well as contractors that have worked on the company’s many Pokemon games for Nintendo.

The hack appears to have taken place in August of this year but only now is data being released online, perhaps suggesting that a time period to negotiate with the hackers has run out.

Over 2,000 items of personnel information have been breached, as well as information, sprites, concept art, and character sheets are being compiled by internet users now and being reposted online.

The leak also includes meeting notes and information on a live-action Pokemon TV series.

Game Freak posted a statement (in Japanese) confirming that the company’s security had been breached saying there had been “unauthorized access by a third party,”

It goes on to confirm that names, addresses, emails, and phone numbers of employees past and present are included in the leak.

“Those who can not be contacted individually due to retirement or other reasons will be notified in this announcement, and a contact person will be set up to respond to inquiries regarding this matter. ”

“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and concern this may have caused to all concerned,”

For all of those just tuning in, we're currently covering the Game Freak Teraleak.

Lots of source files and beta content for past Pokémon games are currently leaking, along with a few details on upcoming projects.

We expect more information to be uncovered in the coming hours… pic.twitter.com/KdoJ4G87Sb

— Centro LEAKS (@CentroLeaks) October 12, 2024

As of yet, there seems to be little around Game Freak’s future Pokemon video game projects which leaves it less damaging than the hack that Insomniac suffered at the start of the year.

The company is currently developing Pokemon Legends Z-A for the Nintendo Switch but, as yet there is no indication that that has been compromised in any way.

Pokemon parent company Nintendo has been targeting emulators and hackers extensively in the last year and has managed to eradicate Switch emulators Ryujinx and Yuzu as well as the Nintendo DS emulator Citra.

Featured image: AI-generated in MidJourney

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