Pokémon Sapphire And Ruby Were Almost Called Crimson And Indigo

Summary

• Pokémon Sapphire and Ruby are some of the franchise's most legendary titles, but they could've been called something else.
• A datamine shared on Twitter revealed that they were almost named Crimson and Indigo.
• Elsewhere, it was revealed that "Team Marine" and "Team Tunnel" were considered potential names for what became Team Aqua and Team Magma.

It's no secret that Pokémon Sapphire and Ruby stand as two of the best entries in the entire Pokémon franchise. Originally released in 2002 for the Game Boy Advance, Sapphire and Ruby introduced gamers to Generation 3 of the series, and boasted a wealth of new elements like double battles, as well as new legendaries.

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Sapphire and Ruby eventually spawned Emerald, then later were remade on the Nintendo 3DS as Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby. But as iconic as Sapphire and Ruby are, they were almost called something else entirely. The potential titles would've ditched the gem aspect in place of other colors. Information about the supposed Pokémon Sapphire and Ruby nixed titles comes from a datamine that was shared on Twitter.

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Taking to Twitter, a Pokémon super fan and dataminer shared their findings about the early workings of what eventually became Ruby and Sapphire. In it, they found that the games were being internally called "Indigo" and "Crimson." That finding comes from translating the Japanese characters of "藍バージョン" and "朱バージョン." It's important to note, though, that the Kanji could translate to a variety of things and a loose translation is being utilized by the dataminer.

Of course, the games were eventually released as Sapphire and Ruby, leaving the Crimson and Indigo titles behind. Indigo would then be used years later as part of the DLC for Scarlet and Violet. One half of that DLC is titled the Indigo Disk, so it's highly unlikely that Game Freak will go back to the well, though Crimson could eventually be used.

Elsewhere, the dataminer found that what released as Team Aqua and Team Magma was "Team Marine" and "Team Tunnel." That's actually pretty believable, as Marine and Aqua are extremely similar. "Team Tunnel" would've certainly been more appropriate, as Groudon is a ground type Pokémon. Magma certainly sounds cooler, but "Tunnel" is a tad bit more accurate.

Finding out the origin of video games and what they could have been named is always an interesting thing. Perhaps down the line, Pokémon Crimson will be released. If not, well, at least we know it was considered.

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