Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s strange Poké Balls lying in doorways are distracting players

A strange phenomenon in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet where random half-buried Poké Balls appear on the ground is being reported by players on social media. To clearly explain what we’re talking about, a common pattern is to see these Poké Balls sitting at the entrances of rooms. Whether in your room at the academy, a gym, or the academy director’s office, these Poké Balls have been spotted with no explanation for why they’re there.

Furthermore, they can also appear during cutscenes. One of the game’s three story routes involves defeating Titan Pokémon and collecting spices with your friend Arven. When I (the original author of this article) would defeat a Titan and enter the cave, I saw a Great Ball in the middle of the cave on multiple occasions. It’s only possible to enter these caves during cutscenes, and they can’t be entered again once the cutscene is over. In other words, it’s impossible to pick up. Despite that, it was there for some reason and distracted me from focusing on the story.

It seems possible for this phenomenon to occur whenever players enter rooms that require a loading screen. I personally saw a Poké Ball during a tense cutscene near the end of the game and almost fell out of my seat. It really puts a damper on the sense of immersion.

Players in Japan have been reporting similar experiences on Twitter and seem a little weirded out by it. While the conditions for making the Poké Ball appear are unknown, the below Twitter user reports that the type of ball that appears depends on the ball the Pokémon at the front of your party is in. For example, if the Pokémon at the front of your party is in an Ultra Ball, the ball will appear as an Ultra Ball.

The phenomenon doesn’t seem to only apply to Poké Balls either, as there have also been reports of Dondozo and Tauros appearing in doorways. While the cause is unknown, it seems possible that the game is preloading 3D models it wants to be able to quickly access and those models are somehow finding their way on screen when they shouldn’t be.

This strange phenomenon doesn’t prevent progression but seeing an unrelated Poké Ball or Pokémon in the middle of a serious scene can spoil it. Or at the very least, is a distraction.

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet bring open world gameplay to the series and take on a number of new challenges, but the reports of performance issues, bugs, and strange problems have been numerous. Mysterious Poké Balls and Pokémon appearing in doorways is just one example. As interesting as they are, hopefully a fix is in the works, so they don’t take away from the game’s story.

Written by. Nick Mosier based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-11-28 12:20 JST)