Pokemon Switch "Leaks" Confirmed as Fake

The recently circulated Pokemon "leaks" have confirmed to be fakes.

Yesterday, WWG reported on a set of supposed leaks showing what appeared to the Starter Pokemon for the next pair of Pokemon games. The leaks supposedly showed a bear-like Grass-Type Pokemon, a pony-esque Fire-Type Pokemon, and a Water-Type Pokemon that resembled a piece of coral.

The art first appeared on 4chan and was quickly deleted, similar to other leaks that ended up being accurate. The "leaks" got the online Pokemon all riled up, even though some doubted the accuracy of the art due to what they claimed was poor Japanese grammar.

It turns out that the skeptics were right. A DeviantArt user named "Brandon H" admitted to creating the fake Pokemon and then posting them to 4Chan. The user's DeviantArt gallery contains a ton of other "Fakemon" designs, so it looks like this was just a clever bid to get attention for himself and his work. Considering that plenty of websites (including ours) and YouTubers posted the pictures in various content, it looks like his gamble paid off.

This isn't the first time that the Pokemon community has had to deal with fake leaks or inaccurate information leading up to the release of a new game. While this is the first fake "leak" of the year, there's usually tons of rumors with little to no sourcing that comes out of the woodwork before each game. It doesn't help that some of these leaks turn out to be real, which makes it even harder to tell between what's fact and what's fiction.

What we do know is that Nintendo is really hoping that Game Freak can finish the upcoming Pokemon Switch titles this year. In a financial report released earlier this week, Nintendo listed the Pokemon Switch games as coming in "2018 or later" despite listing several other games as "TBA." Game Freak warned that the new Pokemon games might take longer than anticipated to finish, but that isn't stopping both Nintendo and fans from wanting the first ever Pokemon game to come out for a household console.