A Mexican newspaper has undoubtedly been left red-faced, having confused a meme about an upcoming Pokémon game for the real thing.

For almost a quarter-of-a-century now, Pokémon has managed to maintain its status as one of the most popular video games series of all time. Needless to say, with so much exposure to the fictitious little critters, you’d think the media might know what’s real and fake in relation to the series.

Last week though, Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield received their official announcements through a special Nintendo Direct presentation. The first games in the eighth generation of the series, these two releases are undoubtedly set to be a big deal.

However, one Mexican newspaper has undoubtedly found itself swept up in the excitement of the new games, unwittingly printing a meme as part of its new announcement.

Following the unveiling of the games last week, plenty of eager fans took to the internet to begin sharing posts about them.

Some, however, decided to take a more humorous route, with one Twitter using that the logical progression in this new series would be the addition of Pokémon Gun.

Yes, adding in the silhouette of a gun and adding bullet holes to a mocked-up logo, the Pokémon Gun picture undoubtedly looks like it could be at least somewhat legitimate.

But, the series has never been this overtly violent in the past, surely the mere mention of a weapon like that would set off some B.S. detectors somewhere along the line, right? Well…

According to Twitter user @cin_ceja, their local newspaper happened to be duped by the Pokémon Gun meme, even printing it as part of their latest edition.

The Mexican publication in question, La voz de Michoacan, shared the image as part of a full article on the new games, which the same Twitter user shared a picture of.

According to the Spanish-speaking commentators on the Tweet, the newspaper did not actually mention Pokémon Gun during any part of the article, instead referring only to Sword and Shield as per the announcement.

However, a few other errors were reportedly made in the body text, including referring to the new region of Galar as “Galard” and misspelling the word for ‘chimpanzee’.

An online version of the article also exists, though it does not mention the fraudulent third game by name either, instead only alluding to it by way of an embedded Tweet.

While details about the new games are still forthcoming, including when we’ll actually get our hands on them, it seems that we might be waiting a very long time before Pokémon Gun comes our way.

Check out a trailer for Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield:

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