Pokémon Sun and Moon Hacks Reveal a Cut Feature

Something that has become especially popular, and often revealing, recently, is datamining, a process by which hackers crack into a game and dig through its code and assets to see what unseen goodies might be hiding. Oftentimes, this is done to demos to get some insight on a final game, but sometimes interesting things can be revealed from a final game as well, and the recently released Pokémon Sun/Moon just so happens to be an example of such.

Hackers have revealed the 3DS games contain additional 3D models of Pokémon featuring what appears to be nearly completed walking animations. Many take this as an indication that the developers were planning to let players have their creatures follow them around while exploring the overworld, similar to Pikachu in Yellow, or the feature recently added to Pokémon Go. What makes this discovery all the more interesting is how complete everything looks, which suggests the feature was cut even late in development. Of course, such discoveries are ripe for speculation, which has some thinking the feature might still be added in via an update or appear in the rumored Pokémon Stars for Switch.

Naturally, neither Nintendo nor the Pokémon Company have commented on this discovery, nor has anything been said regarding updates to the current games or future releases. Maybe the Stars rumors will bear some fruit when Nintendo releases more information about Switch next month, but until then all we’ll have is speculation.

Sources: Kotaku