Pokemon Scarlet & Violet: Known Glitches And Bugs

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are riddled with bugs and glitches ranging from simply funny to downright unplayable. It has so many game-breaking glitches that we have also included all the potential ways you can get out of a soft lock. Here, we have cataloged some of these glitches for you to look out for.

All Known Bugs And Glitches In Pokemon Scarlet & Violet

At this point, It is not a surprise to anyone that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is a bug-ridden mess. The game has so many glitches that we could not even put them all in this guide. At the same time, new ones kept popping up during the writing of this piece. But we have tried to include the most major ones ahead.

Bike Monster

This is perhaps the most popular of the glitches in store for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. To trigger the glitch, you need to be in multiplayer. You need a Co-Op Partner to join your Pokemon game. First, you will pull out your bike and ride on it for a bit. Then, your Co-Op Partner will do the same.

Except, you will be welcomed with a very horrific sight. The Co-Op Partner that was around a normal human’s size just a little while ago is no more. Instead, what you are looking at right now is an other-worldly monster with giant noodly arms and protruding eyeballs staring right into your soul.

You do not need to panic, though. As the glitch will be over by the time you get off the bike, and it does not get in the way of your gameplay from what we have seen so far. In the worst-case scenario, you will have to deal with a cartoonishly large giant riding a bike for the duration of your Co-Op playthrough.

Drowning Pokemons

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s glitches add another layer of difficulty to the beloved Pokemon formula. Now, you will also have to take special care of your placement while triggering Pokemon Battles, especially when you are dealing with the mons vibing in water bodies.

If you go to battle with a land-based Pokemon while the opposing Pokemon is in water, it is possible for your Pokemon to drown in water. Vice versa also holds true, so you can use this neat little trick to make quick work of your friends in Co-Op or other NPC Pokemon trainers that might be vulnerable.

Noclipping

In Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, you also get to noclip your way out of reality if you need a break. You can say you get to Dig your way through the game’s geometry. Your character can fall out of the ground and move outside the bounds of the game.

Here, you get to see the geometry of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s world from never before seen angles. Since this glitch can actually stall your gameplay, you can just load a previous save to get out of this whole situation so that you can go back to actually playing the game.

A user managed to fall through the ground at Inlet Groto and into the seemingly endless abyss of the game’s geometry, as seen from the inside. As their character keeps falling into perpetual nothingness, we see a faint glimpse of Poco Path popping up on the screen. This hints at potential teleportation if done properly. We might see the speedrunning community take advantage of this in the future.

Camera Teleportation

Continuing the trend of potential teleportation techniques, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet boast another hilarious glitch. Sometimes, it is possible for your character to teleport while taking a selfie with your Camera. It is not clear how to activate this technique. But after activation, your character gets teleported outside the Pokemon’s vast open world of Paldea.

Your character is extremely out of bounds of the normal game map. So much so that they cannot even see much of the buildings or any geometry at all, for that matter. All you can see is the lush green landscape around you without any trace of foliage. Furthermore, your character will be falling perpetually, as is usual with noclipping.

Clipping

As you can probably tell from the name, clipping is the opposite of noclipping. Instead of jumping out of the game’s bounds like in noclipping, clipping does the opposite. This glitch clips two or more different bodies together in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. That is to say, and they are attached to each other along with their movement.

Sometimes your Pokemon will clip into it while playing with the green ball. Then, it will move along with the ball with its head still stuck inside. This might also lead to the game freaking out and levitating your Pokemon for a bit. The mounts can also get clipped inside Pokemon Trainer bodies at times, or vice versa is also possible.

With the abomination that is formed. As a result, It is not easy to tell the difference. You can wait for them to unclip back, as it is also possible. Or you can load up a previous save if you have kept one handy which we very much suggest doing.

Broken Body Animations

The bodies in this game can be hilariously broken at times. You might run across bodies of NPCs stuck inside the floor upon entering a building. Or, their head may be rotating counterclockwise at speeds approaching your ride’s tires. But the NPCs will go along with their business as usual without a worry in the world. Their violently rotating heads or disappearing arms are none of their concern.

This glitch should be harmless in most situations in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, as the bodies generally sort their problems out after a while. But you might need to reload your game just in case the glitch persists or if you want to be extra safe just in case.

Body Doubles

Evolutions are an important and vital part of any Pokemon game entry. It is the same case with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, except this time around, the glitches seem to play an even more important part. We are all familiar with evolving a Pokemon. You take care of your Pokemon, making sure that they get as much EXP as possible.

Or you fulfill all the conditions of their evolution, ranging from trading and friendship to various stones. Then, you finally receive the much-awaited notification that lets you know that your Pokemon is evolving.

Except in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, you might notice that something is off. The pokemon you have painstakingly helped nourish is not the one evolving. Instead, a body double of your beloved Pokemon has taken the camera’s focus while the original mon is ripped off their spotlight.

Then, the body double completes the whole Evolution sequence with the original Pokemon in the background. After the sequence is completed, the body double disappears. The glitch should be purely spectacular, and your actual Pokemon should have now evolved, so you do not need to worry.

Ultra Bloom

Even regular Bloom in games is a touchy subject in the industry. The general consensus is that high bloom ruins the visual quality of the scenes actually being rendered. It is one of the first few graphical settings that gamers turn off instead of the opposite. But Pokemon Scarlet and Violet take it one step further with yet another glitch. Enter Ultra Bloom.

You might encounter this glitch while leaving a building. The moment you exit a building during the daytime, you will be granted a wall of pure white light. The glitch almost makes your exit to the outside world look like something divine and pure. The bloom of the pure white light is so high that you will hardly be able to discern any buildings or anything for that matter.

The glitch is akin to a flashbang right in your face. As Paldea is based in Spain, some Spanish people jokingly claimed that this is an accurate portrayal of the daytime in Spain. According to them, this is exactly how the Sun welcomes them each morning. Now to fix the glitch, you will need to load back to a previous save.

Levitating NPCs

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to bugs and glitches. NPC Pokemon Trainers and Pokemons alike will randomly start levitating during your exploration of the populous open world of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

Seeing people and pokemon levitate so nonchalantly is quite a bizarre sight. For example, if you were to observe a Pokemon walking straight ahead. Out of a sudden, their feet will be 10 feet higher than the ground. They would go straight above other pedestrians without either party noticing the other. As this is not a generally disruptive glitch, you can continue your playthrough and act as if nothing happened.

Random NPCs

NPCs love to be a part of wonky glitches in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. During your Pokemon Battles as well as in-game cutscenes, the NPCs might decide to come to say Hi to you and your Pokemons without waiting for an invitation.

NPCs might randomly start walking into the place you decide to have a Pokemon Battle. This leads to some very hilarious moments where an NPC decides to act as a shield between the two fighting mons. It will look like the NPCs are directly hit by your moves, although they will not be actually affected by any of your attacks. This glitch is mildly annoying at worst and does not disrupt actual gameplay.

Pokemon Jumpscares

Guess it is finally time for the Pokemon series to jump into the horror genre. In this glitch, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet try to shake your soul by randomly teleporting different Pokemons in front of you during cutscenes. This glitch is more likely to happen in narrow interior spaces instead of the vast open world.

Caves and the school building are known to have had this glitch. The game teleports any pokemon ranging from a Psyduck to an Ursaring. It only lasts for a quarter of a second, but it is still very spooky if and when it happens to you. The teleported Pokemon will disappear as quickly as they appear. We are confident that this ridiculous and jumpscare-y glitch is purely cosmetic and has no long-lasting effects.

Graphical Issues

The Nintendo Switch is an aging gaming system, and GameFreak has never been that keen on focusing on graphics in the new games after the shift to 3D. This problem is amplified in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet in the form of hilarious graphical glitches and annoying asset pop-ins.

 The pop-in in this game somehow manages to be worse than Sonic Frontiers, and that was already pretty noticeable. Whole buildings will, at times, pop in and out of existence in the background of Pokemon Battles. And you are left wondering if Schrodinger coded this game just to test out his theories.

The graphical fidelity is already nothing to write home about. So these glitches make the problem even worse. Switch emulator developers are having a hard time separating the game’s issues from the emulators. Despite having some cool new animations, the graphical quality of the whole game reeks of a game forced to be released unpolished.

FPS Drops

You would think that the lower graphical settings and the graphical glitches would be necessary sacrifices for a smooth and steady gameplay experience but think again. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have abysmal optimization. The FPS drops are clearly noticeable and frustrating to deal with.

The game stutters like a slideshow at times. On top of that, the framerate is prone to dropping to the lower twenties during some key segments of the game. You cannot solve these optimization problems on the Switch handheld.

You can try docking the system or emulating it after dumping your ROM if you have custom firmware installed. But do keep in mind that these are suggestions at best instead of solutions. Only GameFreak can actually solve these problems with a patch.

Double Speed

The glitches so far have been detrimental to your experience of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet in some way. But you can actually consider this one a cheat code of some sort. This glitch increases the running speed of your character twofold. It was discovered by a reddit user.

The way of triggering this glitch is almost cartoonishly funny and simple. Have you ever wondered as a child if you could just run faster by using the two joysticks on two different controllers? Well, I wonder no more, as Pokemon Scarlet and Violet let you actually do this.

As the running speed of the player character is very low when you are not riding Koraidon or Miraidon, this boost can prove to be pretty useful, at least till GameFreak patches it out of the game. Although, you should keep in mind that this glitch does not affect Koraidon and Miraidon.

How To Get Out Of A Soft Lock

If you are one of the lucky few who did not encounter any glitches from the plethora of bugs and glitches, and the many more we could not include we just talked about, game on. But if, on the off chance, you actually did run into a game-breaking bug or glitch that soft-locked you out of the game, you can just load back to a previous save of your liking. But what if the save is not to your liking and it is too far behind?

Manual Saves

These saves are self-explanatory. Manual saving has been around since the days of Pokemon Red and Blue. You simply open your menu and save your progress at any point in the game in case you need to redo your playthrough from that point onwards. But you might have forgotten to save for a long time, and going back to your previous manual save might erase hours’ worth of progress. In that case, we have the other two types just in case.

Autosaves

Autosaves are a new concept in the Pokemon world. The game autosaves your progress from time to time at important points of your Pokemon journey. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet also show an autosave icon while the game autosaves. The game autosaves in Pokecenters and during important plot-related points. It also sprinkles some autosaves during the exploration too, but those are not as reliable.

A lot of old-schoolers prefer to turn autosaves off. In contrast, this is a perfectly valid way of playing the game. it might lead to some problems down the line if you happen to run into one of those game-breaking bugs. In that case, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have yet another type of Saves.

Secret Autosaves

If you are one of those aforementioned people who decided to turn their autosaves off from the Options menu, fret not. The game still guarantees your safe exit from the soft-lock hell. Probably due to the influx of glitches, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet still continue to autosave at the points mentioned earlier, even if the autosaves are turned off.

You can load back to these secret autosaves with a combination of buttons at any point in the game. The technique required to access these secret autosaves is to open the Menu and enter the following combination of the upper arrow key and the X and B buttons. Up, X, and B saves are totally independent of both regular autosaves and manual saves. So, you can always load out of a soft lock without any fear of losing progress by doing so.

Try Restarting the Game

The first thing to do when a soft lock appears in Pokemon Scarlet & Violet is to try to restart the game. It might appear to be a simple repair, but it frequently resolves the problem. The player can restart the game and start again from a previously saved point by resuming it. It’s conceivable that a tiny programming error led to the soft lock, which might be fixed by restarting the game.

Check for Updates

The user can attempt to see whether there are any game updates or patches available if the soft lock still exists after resuming the game. Updates or patches are frequently released by developers to address problems and hiccups, such as soft locks. The problem could be fixed and future occurrences of the soft lock might be avoided by updating the game. On February 27, 2023, the most recent update for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet was launched, which was version 1.2.0. This update introduced several new features, including a new area named the Dream World, new forms and evolutions for Pokémon, fresh items and moves, and numerous enhancements and bug fixes. These bug fixes might solve your soft lock issue.

Try a Different Approach

If the soft lock is due to a specific objective or puzzle, the player can attempt a different approach. This method works by trying to complete the objective or puzzle in a different way than before. The player may need to experiment with various strategies to find a solution to the soft lock. This approach may require patience and creativity. Also, you can fly to any marked location you have discovered, this becomes very helpful if you get stuck in a place.

Summary

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet launched generation 9 with such bugginess that would put Cyberpunk 2077 to shame. The game is the first mainline Pokemon game to be fully open-world. So, it can be seen as the next step for GameFreak after Pokemon Arceus. Except, Pokemon Arceus, despite having some bugs and glitches of its own, was never released in such a sorry state.

Pokemon fans around the old were eager and excited for the launch of this new generation. But now there is a lot of uncertainty in the community over supporting this pathetic excuse of a launch Gamefreak has put out. Although, players are still praising Scarlet and Violet’s actual features and the cute new starters who are lucky enough to actually be able to play the game without having it breaking on them.

That concludes our guide about bugs and glitches in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Although we were unable to include each and every glitch as the game is in such a terrible state that new glitches keep popping up with each passing day. We also discussed how to load back a past save to get out of game-breaking glitches and soft locks. Let us know if you encounter any in the comments below.

If you are still on the verge of choosing your starter Pokemon, just get them all with our Pokemon Scarlet And Violet: How To Get All Starters guide. If you want to get those sweet, sweet shinies instead, follow our How To Find Shiny Pokémon guide. Lastly, complete your Pokedex with our Complete Pokedex List.