A newly discovered Pokémon Scarlet and Violet bug can crash the game at the final battle

A newly discovered bug in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet can crash the game during the final battle.

This article contains spoilers for the game’s final battle.

The game received its version 2.0.1 update a few weeks ago, and players are now reporting that since the update rolled out, the game can now crash during the final battle of the main storyline.

Specifically, the game can crash when the player has to select their ride Legendary Pokémon while fighting the Paradise Protection Protocol.

Dataminer @mattyoukhana_ discovered what was causing the crash and posted their findings to Twitter.

They concluded that the crash occurs when the player already has Koraidon (if they’re playing Scarlet) or Miraidon (if they’re playing Violet) registered to their Pokédex before the battle takes place.

If they do, when they move the cursor over the fourth, fifth or sixth Pokémon in their party, the game will instantly crash. This means players can’t scroll down to choose their ride Pokémon, which is seventh on the list.

Until the bug is patched, @mattyoukhana_ says it can be avoided by either pressing Up to jump from the first Pokémon in the list directly to the ride Pokémon at the bottom, or by having a team of just three Pokémon.

In August, The Pokémon Company COO Takato Utsunomiya said the company was “having conversations” about how to ensure the quality of future games under its frequent release schedule.

While it’s practically impossible for games to launch without bugs these days, 2019’s Pokémon Sword & Shield was criticised for poor visual quality, while last year’s Scarlet and Violet launched with many technical issues, which Nintendo even apologised for.