Pokemon Developer Game Freak reacts to ongoing hack

Key things

Late last night, Pokemon developer Game Freak was hit with a massive data breach.
However, it seems the company was prepared for this as it shared a statement days before the leaks began.
Game Freak apologized to employees affected by the hack and said it has been able to prevent it from happening again.

Pokemon developer Game Freak has released a statement regarding the recent data breach that leaked a bunch of unannounced projects and development files.

The past few years have been a bit of a rough time for developers as a whole, thanks to seemingly endless job losses and crises, but a new issue has been rising lately – data breaches. In 2022, Rockstar was hit with a massive hack that exposed the first footage of GTA 6, while Insomniac Games exposed their entire channel late last year thanks to a similarly massive data breach.

Shiny Galarian birds over a generic real-life Pokemon Go image

I don't care about Pokemon Go's shiny Galarian Birds because I never catch one

Galarian Birds might be easier to catch when they're shiny, but that's okay if I never encounter them.

Insomniac's hack was such a big and notorious deal that you might have hoped it would end there. Unfortunately, that's not the case, as Pokemon developer Game Freak also suffered a recent data breach that leaked tons of unannounced Pokemon game and development files.

Game Freak Shares Statement Regarding Pokemon Hack

While this hack came as quite a surprise to almost everyone, it seems that Game Freak has been aware of it for some time and was even prepared for last night's leaks. As pointed out by Twitter user Lewchubethe studio shared an official statement on its website earlier this week, three days before the leaks were published.

Twitter user OatmealDome translated the statementwhich confirms that “unauthorized access to our servers” did indeed occur some time ago in August of this year. The statement apologizes to any employees affected by the hack and does not actually focus on the content that has been shared since it was published before the leaks began.

“Due to unauthorized access to our servers in August 2024, personal information about our employees was leaked. We apologize to those affected.”

In response to the hack, Game Freak says it has contacted any of the employees whose personal data was included in the data breach and confirmed that it has “rebuilt and re-checked” its servers to prevent future recurrences. Given how much Pokemon content has been shared from the leak, it seems likely that we'll get another announcement next week.