New Pokemon Was Created By A Fan 5 Years Ago

We got another brief look at Pokemon Sword and Shield in yesterday's Nintendo Direct, and even got to see several of the new Pokemon coming to the game. It turns out, though, that one of the Pokemon wasn't an entirely new invention: it was actually something dreamed up by a fan on a message board five years ago.

The pun-tastic Pokemon known as Polteageist will be just one of the many new Pokemon introduced in Sword and Shield, and as you've probably guessed, its name is not a misspelling. The inclusion of the word "tea" references the fact that Polteageist makes its home inside a teapot, and when Polteageist pokes its head up out of the pot, it wears the lid as a sort of hat. It's absolutely adorable.

It's also an idea fans of Pokemon might have seen before. A user on 4chan supposedly posted a "fakemon" idea back in 2014 about a ghost Pokemon called Polteageist who, yes, lived in a haunted teapot. That version of the Pokemon also had an earlier evolution: "ENTITEA," which lived not in a teapot, but in a teacup.

Is this real? That's kind of hard to determine at this point. The original post was apparently over on 4chan, but the only reference to it now is on an archive site. What's more, it seems users are able to post onto the archive page without Google updating that page's publish date. It's entirely possible someone could've gone in and planted the post there (perhaps by editing a database), though Google does have a snapshot of the text-only version of the page from Aug. 31 that includes the post about Polteageist. Who do we trust?

Really, we're always a little skeptical when someone just happens to stumble upon something (like a Bully 2 leak). And crazy coincidences — like the word "polteageist" existing and relating to Pokemon before yesterday — seem sketchy. But we're having an equally hard time disproving it. So take that as you will.

In any event, it's an interesting story, and one that will undoubtedly have fans questioning whether Game Freak stole a Pokemon idea from a five-year-old message board post. Should anything more come of it, we'll let you know.

Pokemon Sword and Shield comes to Nintendo Switch on Nov. 15, 2019.