Internal Game Freak Documentary Shows Scrapped Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Designs

A 43-minute internal Game Freak documentary covering the development of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl has surfaced online, uploaded to Internet Archive by Lewtwo, an archivist and historian who obtained it legitimately via a DVD copy. The documentary is entirely in Japanese and awaits a full translation, but even without understanding the dialogue, the visuals alone are a goldmine for fans.

The footage includes concept art of scrapped Pokémon designs, early versions of existing Pokémon that look noticeably different from their final forms, character and scene concept art, and clips of in-game areas still in development. Standout moments include what appears to be a proto-Bidoof, an early round design that might be a scrapped grass-type starter or a Sandshrew variant, a noticeably more unsettling original design for the legendary Dialga, and — the one sending fans into a spiral — what looks like a fully Santa Claus-themed evolution of Delibird that never made it into the games. Around the 23-minute mark, the documentary briefly flashes a rapid series of concept images on screen, including what appears to be a yellow Gastrodon variant and several unidentified creatures. Frame-by-frame scrubbing is strongly recommended.

Game Freak and The Pokémon Company are famously tight-lipped about development history, which makes a document like this unusually rare. Diamond and Pearl, released in 2006 in Japan and 2007 in most other regions for the Nintendo DS, were the fourth-generation entries in the mainline series and introduced the Sinnoh region. They were later remade as Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl in 2021, developed by ILCA rather than Game Freak itself.

The documentary is currently available on Internet Archive. A full translation would unlock the developer commentary, which could reveal far more about why these designs were cut and what direction the team was originally heading. Until then, the Delibird evolution remains the most talked-about frame in the whole thing.