Earlier this month, The Pokemon Company and Game Freak suffered a massive leak. This alleged leak revealed a ton of unconfirmed details about the future of the Pokemon franchise, including the alleged name for Gen 10 and our next Legends game. Now, several weeks after the initial leak began circulating, we could have some new information. A dataminer claims to have surfaced an early prototype build for the upcoming Pokemon Pokopia from those files.
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The rumored information comes from X account @RyDawE, who shared an image from the supposed beta version of Pokemon Pokopia on October 27th. The self-proclaimed Pokemon superfan and dataminer states they uncovered a full beta version of Pokopia dating back to 2019. It is supposedly a fully playable project created in Unity. Following this initial post, leak account @CentroLeaks shared what is supposedly video of them actually playing the beta. And if this is Pokopia, it certainly looks a lot different from the 2025 reveal trailer.
Alleged Early Build of Pokopia Looks More Like Stardew Valley Meets The Sims than Minecraft
The project that RyDawgE reports finding is supposedly a fully playable beta build of an early Pokopia Concept. They shared a series of 2D pixel-art renderings from the project, noting that more info would come as they got it all compiled. A few hours after RyDawgE shared this info, Centro Leaks posted a 2-minute video of the project in action, giving gamers a deeper look at what this 2019 concept might have looked like.
In this rumored prototype, we can see Pokemon completing tasks that have been assigned to them. The world itself bears some resemblance to the pixel art style of Stardew Valley, but the task queue for Pokemon feels a lot like a life sim a la The Sims. Notably, the Human Ditto character does not make an appearance. Oh, what might have been.
This gameplay looks fairly different from what we saw in the Pokopia reveal earlier this year. And that makes sense given that this prototype is supposedly from 2019 and would have been a much earlier concept of the game. According to Centro Leaks, the game was originally a Game Freak project, which may further explain the massive difference in direction. The Pokemon Pokopia we now know is credited as a joint project between Creatures Inc., Game Freak, and Koei Temco.
The Pokemon Pokopia we know today also uses a 3D art style that gives Animal Crossing vibes. If this beta version is indeed the game that eventually became Pokopia, it’s clear that it has changed pretty significantly. From what we’ve seen of Pokopia, the player character will complete many tasks by learning them from Pokemon. Whether that means we won’t also assign tasks to our pals isn’t yet clear, but it seems like the Human Ditto addition came along later in the project’s development.
Another notable detail is that the leaked footage shows a clear night and day cycle. The official Pokopia page from Pokemon tells us that “the time of day and weather shift in a natural cycle.” So, this feature from the supposed early build has carried over to the 3D model we see today. Much else about the game looks to have shifted significantly, as this early video looks a lot like a mobile game with built-in monetization to unlock certain actions.
It’s important to note that leaks like this always contain unconfirmed information, works in progress, and rumors. Even if this file truly is an early version of Pokopia, it’s hard to say how much we can glean about the current build of the game from it. However, it is interesting to see how this project could have changed from its early conception to the game we’re getting next year.
Pokemon Pokopia is set to release for the Nintendo Switch 2 in 2026. An exact release date hasn’t yet been revealed, but it may well be our first Switch 2 exclusive Pokemon game ahead of Gen 10.
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