Pokemon esports event accidentally leaks unreleased Scarlet & Violet Pokemon

Andrew Highton
ceruledge in pokemon scarlet & violet

At the Pokemon San Diego 2023 Regional Championships, fans of the series witnessed an accidental leak that seemed to show Pokemon not currently available in Scarlet & Violet.

Pokemon Scarlet & Violet added a ton of new Pokemon to the franchise, taking the overall total of creatures past the 1,000 mark. Across nine generations of Pokemon, we’ve seen a ton of different and varied creatures.

The previous generation, Sword and Shield, expanded upon the series even further with DLC, released long after the original games debuts. Even though there is currently no official additional content planned for the future of Scarlet & Violet, a new leak has got fans talking.

The 2023 Pokemon San Diego Regional Championships is a competitive event that sees players competing against each other across a range of different Pokemon games. During one of the event’s livestreams, we appeared to see new entries in the Pokedex that have not appeared in any game thus far.

Twitter user @mattyoukhana_ posted a tweet to their followers explaining: “During the San Diego Regional Championships stream today, their manual sprite selector for team previews accidentally showed off Scarlet & Violet style menu sprites for Pokémon that are not currently in the games. They probably just have art for all 1008 species for the future.”

To back this up, they attached a picture that indeed showed the sprites for six Pokemon including Kabuto, Garbador, Vanillish, and Volbeat.

Bookending these four Pokemon are two others – but ones that have never been seen before in the Pokemon franchise.

The appearance of the two previously unseen and unannounced Pokemon immediately got fans discussing with many believing them to be added to the new games in future DLC.

“Either that or they’re from the DLC already in development,” replied one tweet. The OP agreed that this could be a reality: “That’s also a possibility, but if I say that in the original tweet, some accounts (and YouTubers) will misconstrue my words and say that these are confirmed to return in DLC.”

If they do appear, then one user believes that these could form part of a Fossil Pokemon drop too: “Fossil Pokémon, something initially not featured at all in S&V. Along with them should come newly introduced Fossil Pokémon as well, Spain does have a history with fossils let’s not forget.”

As usual with these kinds of leaks, nothing here is confirmed and should all be treated as speculation for the time being.


If you’re after more Pokemon Scarlet & Violet news though, check out everything we know about the Hydreigon & Dragapult Tera Raid Battle Event, as well as news on if Pokemon Home will be available for Scarlet & Violet.

Image Credit: The Pokemon Company

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