Pokémon Developer Game Freak Hit by Hacker Attack, Unreleased Game Source Code and Designs Leaked

The renowned Pokémon game developer and Japanese game company, Game Freak, recently confirmed that it suffered a hacker attack in August 2024, during which parts of unreleased game source code and game designs were leaked online.

The company is most famous for the Pokémon series, which Game Freak developed for Nintendo's gaming devices. As a collaborative development effort, Nintendo is also one of the copyright holders of the Pokémon games.

Similar to the electronics manufacturer Casio, Game Freak only disclosed the cyber intrusion after the data had already been published online, possibly only realizing the breach once the information was publicly available.

Since last week, multiple Discord groups, Reddit boards, and various leak sites started posting source code and development version screenshots of Pokémon games that Game Freak was planning to release.

However, in their latest announcement, Game Freak has still not admitted to the theft of game data, only confirming that personal information of employees, vendors, and former employees has indeed been stolen by hackers.

The leaked information mainly includes the full names of employees or vendors and their company email addresses. The severity of this information leak is not considered very high. For Game Freak, the leak of game source code is a much bigger issue.

Game Freak has stated that the data of Pokémon game players is not affected and that a thorough investigation of the hacked servers has been completed, along with the implementation of security strategies to prevent similar attacks in the future.

As for who launched the attack, it remains unclear. Typically, if the motive is for ransom or revenge, hackers would promote their actions on Telegram or X/Twitter. The absence of anyone claiming responsibility suggests the hackers might have had different objectives.