It has been a historic month for Pokemon leaks. Recently, Game Freak — the developer responsible for the Pokemon series — was hacked, and as a result, a metric ton of company files leaked online. This included new information on Pokemon games of old, Pokemon games of the present, and Pokemon games of the future. Included in the latter category is Pokemon Legends: Z-A, the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 sequel to 2022’s Pokemon Legends: Arceus.
So far, the Pokemon Legends: Z-A leaks have been light compared to leaks pertaining to older Pokemon games. In terms of salient information, the first thing about Pokemon Legends: Z-A that leaked was word of Mega Evolutions returning and two Pokemon in the game. Then a third Pokemon leaked. And now we have some insight into the game’s release date.
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More specifically, it has been revealed that Pokemon Legends: Z-A was originally planned to release in 2024. When exactly in 2024, and when these plans changed, is unclear. We know the plan is to now release the game via both the current Switch and the upcoming Switch 2. How that factors into this information, we don’t know. It is possible it was originally just going to be a Switch game, at least at release. It is also possible the Switch 2 was originally also supposed to release in 2024.
Whatever the case, this may tell us that Pokemon Legends: Z-A will release sooner rather than later, unless this delay was significant. If the plan was to release it in 2024, a release in the first of half of 2025 seems more likely than a release in the second half of the year, but this is just speculation.
For what it is worth, it is very possible these new Pokemon leaks will actually end up delaying the release of Pokemon Legends: Z-A and other future Pokemon games. To this end, even if the game is scheduled to release in the first half of 2025, this could very well change now in this post-leak world.
Of course, take everything here with a grain of salt. While the leak in question is real, some of the specifics of it are missing context and may have changed over time. A Pokemon Legends: Z-A release date of 2024 seems ambitious considering Pokemon Legends: Arceus didn’t release until 2022, but it currently does seem like that was indeed the ambition at one point.
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