A chill is in the air, and it's not just because fall is here. Pokemon Sword and Shield's second DLC expansion, Crown Tundra, arrives tomorrow, bringing with it a blizzard of new things for trainers to tackle. Crown Tundra is home to a number of Pokemon sure to excite long-time fans of the franchise, but not much else is known about the mysterious icy lands. While fans are excited to uncover secrets in the tundra, some other "fans" are rumored to have uncovered some debug files in Pokemon Sword and Shield.
While leaks are commonplace these days, it has been an unusual year for Nintendo, as it has been the target of several prominent leaks. The Nintendo Gigaleak revealed an incredible amount of early development files for a number of Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 titles. The Nintendo Wii's source code was also leaked earlier this year.
The latest leak to strike at Nintendo concerns debug files for Pokemon Sword and Shield. What has leaked shows a very rough build of the game with a number of placeholder assets and areas devoid of textures. In some shots, performance metrics for CPU and GPU appear, indicating that this debug ROM was used to gauge how well the game was holding up under stress. The leak doesn't reveal any hidden content, or do irreparable damage to Nintendo, but whoever obtained the debug ROM did so illegally. Nintendo is very protective of its property, as evidenced by the lawsuit filed against TikTok star Pokeprincxss, so the big N is likely trying to figure out who it was that leaked this.
Much like the Gigaleak, when assets like this leak, it is a double-edged sword for fans and the company. Fans are curious about what was left on the cutting room floor, and seeing early assets is a fascinating look into the production behind a game. On the flipside, a company, particularly one that is meticulous when it comes to their image like Nintendo, doesn't want that early work out there. Much like a writer wouldn't want the first draft a novel to leak, a game company doesn't want the early builds getting out. That isn't going to stop people from digging, like the recent find that a 3D Kirby game might be heading for Switch.
The leak is also strangely well timed, appearing just before players dive into Crown Tundrain search of Galarian Legendary Birds. A weird year of leaks from Nintendo continues, with no telling what will pop up next.
Pokemon Sword and Shield are available now for Nintendo Switch.
Source: Go Nintendo