Leak Reveals The Deleted Dark History Of Pokémon

On October 10, "Pokémon" franchise developer Game Freak put out a statement acknowledging that it had suffered a massive data leak. Hackers seized thousands of files, including employees' personal information, source code for multiple games, info on the Switch 2, and some unpublished lore documents containing dark stories and pitches about the history of Pokémon. In its statement, Game Freak apologized to those affected by the leak and made sure to note that the vulnerability in its servers has already been addressed. The company is still doing damage control, however, because that leaked information has made its way online, and everyone's talking about it. Even though we don't approve of how the info got out, the things we're learning are too intriguing to ignore.

Fans are definitely interested in what the leaks have to say about the future of "Pokémon," but they're absolutely flabbergasted by the documents detailing the franchise's past. These leaks include never-before-seen stories about the history of Pokémon and humans that are far more disturbing than the darkest "Pokémon" fan theories. Yes, there are stories about Pokémon and humans having hybrid children, and yes, you should probably sit down before reading the rest of this.

Gamers are sharing news about the Game Freak leaks even faster than they shared the details of the latest Switch 2 leaks, but to be fair, the "Pokémon" lore documents that have been found are a bit more "interesting" than a next-gen console's spec sheet.

Ok WTF Game Freak pic.twitter.com/hZF5uHQ2lg

— Centro LEAKS (@CentroLeaks) October 13, 2024

These stories are all structured like Brothers Grimm fairly tales, and they're set at a time "when the boundary between Pokémon and humans was still blurred." In one, a man is basically gifted a baby by an Octillery. That baby grows up to be a young man who gets a powerful sword from a stray Sharpedo — and then he uses that sword to violently torture wild Ursarings, until one day he and a Ursaring strangle each other to death in battle. 

The violence feels a little weird and out of place in the stories, but what really makes these "Pokémon" myths disturbing is the way some of them describe mating between Pokémon and humans. In one story, a woman who kills Slakoth for fun is attacked by a Vigoroth and loses consciousness. At the end of the story, she gives birth to a Slakoth, revealing that Slakoth are half-human. In another story, a girl gets lost in the woods and taken in by a Typhlosion. The Typhlosion feeds her special berries and seemingly makes her forget her family so that she'll become his wife. The girl's father eventually finds her and kills the Typhlosion. The heartbroken later she gives birth to a child, revealing that Typhlosions are also part human.

It's a lot.

These stories are completely unhinged, and fans are unclear about why they're so dark, or even why they exist in the first place. Some are arguing that the stories are clearly structured like classical myths, while others have pointed out that previous "Pokémon" games like "Pokémon Diamond" and "Pearl" have made references to humans marrying Pokémon in the distant past. For the most part, though, fans are treating this whole thing like one big (bizarrely dark) joke. For one thing, people are noting that whoever wrote the stories really picked the strangest Pokémon imaginable to turn into human hybrids. Meanwhile, others are trying to imagine how these stories must be seen from a Pokémon's perspective.

Pokemon. pic.twitter.com/33Gx3iKO0U

— LimeyAce (commissions closed) (@SuperSourSoda) October 14, 2024

Fans are also imagining all the new crossover possibilities that would be open to the "Pokémon" franchise if these stories were made canon (with many, many crass jokes about The Deep from Amazon's "The Boys").

The deep confirmed to be in Pokemon???? pic.twitter.com/B5z2edLb7K

— ✨Lilith✨ (@HotTopic4Way) October 13, 2024

Others are just trying to figure out why in the world these lengthy stories were written and then never used. Some have even joked that Game Freak may have a permanent fan fiction position at the company.

Game Freak writing up lore they were never gonna reveal https://t.co/C5C8HJg7jD pic.twitter.com/JQmADv43ir

— Agravain (@IncarnatedFiend) October 13, 2024

The internal reaction at Game Freak is likely approaching DEFCON 5 right about now. Honestly, the entire internet's reaction can be best summed up by one quote: "Seems like the writing team at Game Freak really put the FREAK in their name." We can take some small amount of comfort in knowing these stories were never meant to be seen by human eyes (at least, not any outside of Game Freak), but unfortunately there are some things you just can't unsee.