Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are the talk of the town, but not for the reasons Nintendo likely wanted. While many are enjoying their new Pokémon adventures, the tweets are all about how buggy the games are. These glitches range from funny to bizarre to hilarious. But there’s one quirk that isn’t like the others—the hidden ability to run faster than you should be able to.
As demonstrated by Redditor hamsterhead64, by connecting a second Joy-Con to your Switch playing Pokémon Scarlet or Violet, you can greatly increase your running speed across the Paldea region. With both controllers connected, you need to push both left sticks at “an angle” (meaning, any position other than directly up, down, left, or right), and you’ll see your character book it faster than Keemstar.
The game isn’t necessarily designed for you to run this fast, so you could notice the game struggling to keep up with you. Wild Pokémon might not generate in time for you to sprint past, although, as one Redditor points out, “you don’t need to run fast for that.” Ouch. It’s certainly not a hack that justifies running out and spending $40 for a single new Joy-Con, but if you happen to have another Switch controller laying around, definitely give it a try.
Of course, this likely isn’t a bug you’d discover on your own. Pokémon’s multiplayer doesn’t happen on one Switch. Whether you’re trading ‘mons, battling friends, or teaming up to complete challenges, everyone’s on their own game and console, so why think to connect another Joy-Con in the moment?
The more pressing question, though, is why this bug exists in the first place. One convincing theory comes from Redditor Pulley999, who guesses it’s due to the way Game Freak is coding around the joysticks: According to their assumption, the game reads the joystick position map as a square, rather than a circle, with the four individual corners typically impossible to reach. However, use two sticks at an angle at once, and suddenly the game thinks you’re positioned in these corners, allowing you to potentially go 41% faster than normal.
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Another user points out the new Pokémon Snap has the same quirk, leading to guesses that Game Freak is reusing the code from that game in these new titles. One other shares they developed a game with a similar bug in their high school IT class. The entire thread is a fun read.
Really, though, we don’t know for sure what causes the bug, nor do we know if Game Freak will patch it in a future update. With that in mind, you should run while you still can.
