Major Pokémon Sword And Shield Bug Is Corrupting Players’ Save Data

Just when we thought the controversy surrounding Pokémon Sword and Shield was beginning to subside, a whole new problem affecting the Switch games has come to light.

Accusations of reused character models and National Dex criticisms Game Freak could (and so far has) largely ignore, but a potentially devastating bug? Not so much. In fact, so invasive is this particular species, that those affected are at risk of losing not only any progress made in the new Pokémon titles themselves but any and all save data that may be stored on the console’s SD card.

At this time, the issue’s root cause isn’t clear, though Reddit user MichaelmouseStar has put together a thread containing evidence and warning others of its existence. In one link provided, video proof shows a Japanese player’s game crashing in the middle of a play session, forcing them to completely reformat their memory card, and deleting their save data for Splatoon 2 in the process.

Corrupted saves aren’t exactly ideal at the best of times, but the situation escalates further when such errors start affecting other software. As both publisher of Sword and Shield and, in this instance, the platform owner, Nintendo will undoubtedly be concerned with the reports, and it remains to be seen when (and even if) Game Freak will have a fix ready to go.

It’s worth noting, however, that at this point in time, only those with digital copies of the highly-anticipated games have been affected. Physical copies are therefore considered ‘safe’ to use. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the story as it develops but for now, our best advice would be to sit tight and await an official update on the issue from Nintendo and/or Game Freak. Watch this space.