Much to the chagrin of everyone at Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, the latest Pokémon games, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have leaked. It’s common for games to find their way into the hands of customers a couple of days ahead of the official release date. However, the Pokémon games have leaked almost a full two weeks ahead of their scheduled launch on November 19.
The leak has led to Nintendo scrambling to try and remove all footage of the games from the internet as quickly as it can. Not exactly an easy task. Pokémon Sword and Shield also leaked ahead of their release in 2019. That leak was tracked down to a review code being handed over to a third party. When Nintendo found out which website had been given the code, they permanently blacklisted it.
Nintendo also went after two fans who shared info on Sword and Shield before they released. One of the fans worked at a company responsible for printing the strategy guide for the game. He took pictures of the strategy guide and shared them in a private group. A member of that group then shared them online. Nintendo eventually won a lawsuit against the two and they were ordered to pay $150,000 each in damages.
It’s not clear yet how the leak of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl has come about. It’s likely that it is still just a handful of copies of the game at most. If the leak were wider, the games would likely have appeared on pirating websites but they have not. Either way, Nintendo has a long two weeks ahead, trying to stay on top of the leaks before the official November 19 release date. For those who want to avoid spoilers, it’s probably best to avoid anything related to Pokémon for the next couple of weeks.