Summary
One decade-oldPokemonfan theory regarding the geography of the Kalos region has recently been proven to hold some weight after major content leaks revealed extensive development materials associated with several titles in the franchise. A great deal of this information had previously remained unseen by anyone outside of Game Freak’s offices until the recentPokemon"teraleak," which exposed a massive wealth of information including employees' personal details, beta Pokemon designs, cut content from the games, and much more.
The tides ofnever-before-seenPokemoncontentthat began flooding the internet recently on October 13th is already widely considered to be one of the biggest leaks in gaming history. Game Freak has publicly acknowledged the breach, providing an apology to staff and fans alike for the inconvenience caused, along with reassurance that the company is striving to strengthen its security measures further going forward. While there’s a whole trove of information that fans are continuing to dig through, many Gen 6 enthusiasts have been quick to acknowledge a game screenshot taken early inPokemon X and Y’s development which seems to confirm a decade-long fan theory.
The theory in question refers to the existence of a southern portion of the Kalos region not seen in the final version of the Gen 6 games. Directly based on France - or more specifically, northern France - the Kalos region features a variety of towns and cities directly inspired by real-world locations, including the vast Lumiose City, which is essentiallyParis in thePokemonworld. A recently-discovered game screenshot from early on in the games' development actually includes a rather different map of the region which confirms that Kalos was originally intended to represent the entirety of France, with the early regional map including a southern section populated by several unused cities and locations.
Why Southern Kalos is Such a Mysterious Part of The Pokemon World
This has obviously left no shortage of Gen 6Pokemonfans upset that they never got to see the Kalos region that could have been, with fans long speculating that a potential southern Kalos would havearrived in the fabledPokemon Z, a third Gen 6 title which ultimately never saw fruition. The stretch of land south of the known Kalos region has been brought up in further discussion in more recent years too, as manyPokemonenthusiasts have speculated that the Paldea region - based on Spain and Portugal - may actually connect to southern Kalos in the north-east, just as France and Spain are connected in the real world.
While this is a widely-accepted theory, it certainly isn’t established fact. The idea does seem extremely likely thanks to the uncanny parallel between real-world geography in relation to that in the world ofPokemon, but there’s little material in official canon that concretely displays how all of the games' regions connect in the world. Still, fans will beheading back to Kalos next year inPokemon Legends: Z-A, which itself might shed some more light on these particular parts of thePokemonworld and their history.
Pokemon
Pokemon is a franchise that needs no introduction. One of the most successful media empires in history, Pokemon spans games, television, films, manga, merchandise, music, and more.
