100+ scrapped Pokémon designs from Diamond and Pearl revealed after 20 years

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A slew of new information about the development of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl has surfaced online following the discovery of a never-before-seen official Game Freak documentary, almost 20 full years after the release of the games.

This long-lost documentary was once mentioned by Pokemon lead Junichi Masuda in a blog post over 19 years ago, but its contents were never revealed to fans… until now. Earlier this year, an auction listing for a copy of the DVD allegedly appeared online before being snapped up by a buyer. Now, it appears that another copy of the DVD has been obtained, and this time, its contents have been uploaded and shared.

The documentary looked at the development process of the 2006 RPGs, including work-in-progress looks at the games themselves and scrapped Pokemon designs.

It should be noted that the source of this information being a physical DVD means that this is all completely separate from 2024's enormous Game Freak leak (which followed a third-party data breach) . Game Freak never publicly acknowledged any leaks beyond confirming that there had been "unauthorized access" to its server in August 2024. However, last year, Nintendo reportedly began taking legal action , having apparently filed a request for a subpoena in an attempt to identify the person responsible.

We're currently in a slightly quiet time for the franchise, with the next duo of games, Pokemon Winds and Waves , not set to release until sometime next year on Switch 2. In the meantime, though, we do have more of the delightful Pokemon Pokopia to look forward to, as the first part of its paid DLC arrives next month, as well as a free update.

Pokemon Pokopia was bioengineered to be the "best selling spin-off" according to Koei Tecmo CEO, but he had no "real expectations" for the cozy game until it became an international hit.