As has been much chronicled, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet was released in a messy state. Riddled with bugs, crashes, clipping, pop-up, and abysmal framerates, it was so unfit for purpose that many attempted to get their money back. Nintendo has been characteristically quiet on the matter, previously failing to acknowledge the severity of the issues. However, in a new patch released today offering “select bug fixes,” it at last makes clear the company is at least aware of it all.
Version 1.1.0, at just 1GB, is designed to not only introduce Season 1 of the Ranked Battles in the Battle Stadium, but also to fix various bugs. Infuriatingly, rather than openly naming said fixes (as we’d expect from pretty much any other publisher), Nintendo chooses to identify only one of the fixes, and it couldn’t be more trivial:
An issue has been fixed that caused the music to not play correctly during the battles with the Elite Four and the Top Champion in the Victory Road path.
Oh phew! Because you know how everyone was like, “Sure, my game keeps crashing to menu, and half the time I’m battling Pokémon half-wedged into rocks, but at least the music will play properly in that one bit near the end.”
Beyond this, it simply says that, “Other select bug fixes have been made.” Given the patch is only 1GB, it can’t be an enormous number.
However, and very importantly, there is a little paragraph at the end, that at long last sees Nintendo recognizing that the state of the game is not OK.
We are aware that players may encounter issues that affect the games’ performance. Our goal is always to give players a positive experience with our games, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We take the feedback from players seriously and are working on improvements to the games.
Again, infuriatingly vague, but at least an admission that Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are a buggy ol’ hodgepodge. We’ve contacted Nintendo to ask for much more detail, firstly about which bugs have been fixed this time, and to ask for a timeline for fixes for those that remain. We’ll update as soon as we hear back.