Pokemon Game Deleting Save Files, How To Avoid Losing Everything
A Pokemon Scarlet and Violet update is deleting save files, but gamers who avoid syncing the game with the Pokemon Go app may be able to avoid losing everything.
After bringing back the most popular character, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet just received an update that’s actually deleting gamers’ save files. This isn’t the first we’ve heard of gaming releases deleting character progression; Call of Duty Warzone did it intentionally, but Destiny 2 suffered a bug that also removed players’ characters along with any gear they might’ve collected.
According to Kotaku, the latest Pokemon Scarlet and Violet patch introduced even bigger problems for gamers. Apparently, connecting the game to the Pokemon Go app or downloading its DLC causes the game to lose entire save files. And the worst thing is that there’s more than one singular cause of this save-corrupting bug that made some players lose hundreds of hours of progression. Some lost the files by syncing with Pokemon Go, while others wiped their saves by downloading the DLC.
There’s no adequate solution to this problem yet. But, as they say, the ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and for the time being, the only viable thing to do to avoid losing your save files is to avoid syncing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet with Pokemon Go and to avoid downloading the DLC. The Pokemon company still hasn’t released an official statement regarding the issues caused by the recent update, but various players contacted Nintendo’s support, which assured them that the company is investigating the matter.
In fact, the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet customer service offered a single solution for the time being, and that particular solution isn’t yet available to players. Namely, those affected can transfer their Pokemon to Pokemon HOME once the compatibility with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet launches. But that suggestion is nothing short of a shot in the dark since there’s no guarantee that the service will be able to read the corrupted save files.
Unfortunately, though, the exact cause of the issue remains unknown.
There’s a whole spectrum of causes between the ones we described. Some users lost their files by merely downloading the DLC, while others had their game in working order for a couple of minutes before their files were gone. The worst part about it is that the save recovery method doesn’t actually work in this case, so those save files might be as good as gone.
Of course, this is pure speculation from our end, but think of all the hours and Pokemon lost due to a bug caused by the patch that’s supposed to fix stuff plaguing the game from the beginning. With no end in sight, all eyes are currently watching Nintendo and awaiting resolution.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet launched in November, marred with bugs and technical issues, prompting Nintendo to issue refunds to gamers. Some have blamed the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet errors on Nintendo Switch’s aging hardware, which is highly unlikely, considering that those games were developed for that particular platform. Hopefully, the leaked Nintendo Switch 2 won’t suffer from many alleged problems plaguing the current iteration. With that said, the Joy-Con issue should be addressed in the next iteration.
