Back in 2002, The Pokemon Company releases Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire, the first Pokemon games in the franchise’s third Generation and the first ever released for the Game Boy Advance.

Originally announced as “Pokemon GBA”, it took quite some time before the final names for the games were finalized as “Ruby & Sapphire”. According to dataminers @KmiE_821 and @Wobbuu, Game Freak may have been considering naming the pair “Crimson & Indigo”. This info comes via datamined text making reference to game versions “藍” & “朱”, which the dataminers translate as “Indigo” and “Crimson” respectively. 

First image snippet is from the script file field_c102.ev (Rustboro's Grunt flee event)

Second image snippet is from the script file cave_d0701s.ev (Mt. Chimney feud between Aqua and Magma)

— farore.gba (@KmiE_821) July 14, 2024

The Ruby and Sapphire version names were first revealed at Festa 2002, which started in July. The final games build dates back to 2002 October 13th, only a few months afterward.

— farore.gba (@KmiE_821) July 14, 2024

Keep in mind "Indigo" and "Crimson" are unofficial translations of ours and not specifically assigned by GF. What's definite are 藍 & 朱 as shown in the images provided.

— farore.gba (@KmiE_821) July 15, 2024

Notably, Pokemon “朱” is recorded as one of the unused trademarks filed by The Pokemon Company, albeit translated as Pokemon Vermilion. With this in mind, its possible we might see a real Pokemon Crimson or Indigo show up somewhere down the line, albeit likely unrelated to the Gen III titles.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.