Pokémon fans are clinging to leaked concept art of a starter that never existed

A lot of new information about the Pokémon series is emerging this week after developer Game Freak suffered a data breach that exposed decades of information and assets. Unfortunately, it also included some personal information about the employees, but the majority of the leak consists of information about old and upcoming projects from the Pokémon franchise. Among the files was concept art for the three starter Pokémon, Ruby and Sapphire. Two of them sound pretty familiar, but one was completely scrapped before the release of the Game Boy Advance games in 2002.

The art, which represents an earlier concept of the Ruby and Sapphire starters, includes Torchic, albeit with two floppy ears, Treecko with a yellow belly instead of his final pink, and in Mudkip’s place, a white and blue rabbit with a tube around its torso. You’ll see it mentioned with names like Wallabit, Warabbit, and Wallaby, but the Japanese name seen in the concept art is ワラビット.

Even though there’s only been this one glimpse of the Pokémon so far, fans are already excited about the cute little guy it could have been, and a flood of fan art has flooded the internet.

Wallabit is hardly the only scrapped Pokemon revealed in the leaks, but the others are non-starters and therefore likely would have had a less formative impact on their respective games. A starter Pokémon, on the other hand, could fundamentally change a player’s entire gaming experience. If Mudkip hadn’t existed and we’d gotten Wallabit instead, we would have been spared a cursed meme, but also many people would have had another partner at their side at the start of their Ruby and Sapphire journey. Anyway, Mudkip fans, bless you: This is a much less cursed thing coming out of the leaks than what happened with Typhlosion.

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