Pokémon Gen 10 Leaked Starters Sound Absolutely Wild

The next big gimmick, alongside a bunch of other info, has supposedly leaked for the tenth generation of Pokémon games– and “absolutely wild” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Every time there’s a new generation of Pokémon games, Nintendo and Game Freak seem to be obsessed with one-upping themselves by adding in some kind of odd new gimmick that they rarely ever seem to follow up on again.

Generation Six introduced Mega Evolutions, Generation Eight tried out Gigantamaxing/Dynamaxing, and Generation Nine decided that neither of those were cool enough, so they opted to introduce Terastallization instead.

Thankfully, it seems that the coolest of these gimmicks is coming back around once again, as Pokémon Legends: Z-A for the Nintendo Switch 2 is (finally) bringing back Mega Evolutions.

According to one leak, however, it won’t be sticking around to stay permanently, because it claims that Game Freak are going to (once again) introduce two new gimmicks to the franchise: “Beta” Evolutions and cross breeding.

As detailed in a post by @HiddenPowerPod over on Twitter, the leak claims that in Generation Ten, which will apparently be set somewhere analogous to both Greece and Indonesia, all of this will be introduced alongside the return of Mega Evolutions.

Beta Evolutions sound a little bit vague to me, as they'll apparently only boost the power of middle-stage evolution 'Mons, alongside changing their typing. On the other hand, cross-breeding sounds a bit too in-depth, allowing you to create new 'Mons by using specific Pokémon (such as Heracross and Pinsir) to make an egg.

They also state that Pokémon Day (which is held on February 27) will officially show off the three new starters, which the leak states are "a Fire type Sea Horse, a Grass buffalo, and a water Nymph". Also, they even outright state that the game has a release date: November 12, 2026.

So, it’s time to play our favourite leak-related game: how likely is it that this is actually true?

I highly, highly doubt it.

You’ll notice that the source that Hidden Power Pod is using is 4chan. Don’t get me wrong, a bunch of real leaks have come from 4chan in the past, including the new Mega Evolutions for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, but anyone can go on there and say whatever they like.

Also, some of these things just sound too ridiculous to be true. Beta Evolutions, for instance, sound completely pointless and like a less cool version of Gen 9’s Terastallization.

I’m taking this one with a massive pinch of salt, personally, but I guess we’ll see if I’m proven wrong once February rolls around.