Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: Reports of “severed heads” have players terrified

An eerie bug in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet that results in floating severed heads has trainers terrified.

*Please be aware that this article contains spoilers for events that occur toward the end of the main story.

In Pokémon Scarlet, the protagonist enrolls in Naranja Academy, while in Pokémon Violet, they enroll in Uva Academy. Regardless of which version of the game they have, players will embark on a grand adventure as part of their school’s special independent study project.

The bug that we will discuss in this article occurs right at the main entrance to the school. While battling in this location, a bizarre phenomenon can occur where a severed head unsteadily floats by. There are times when it is a whole head and other times when only a portion of the face and hair are visible. But no matter how it appears, it is an incredibly creepy sight.

*Twitter user @nt___nnn happened to encounter the bug at the exact moment that Abomasnow used the move Aurora Veil. The timing matched so perfectly that it does indeed look like shooting out a severed head is a part of the move.

In the post below, an approaching NPC walks through the currently battling Pokémon and suddenly turns into a severed head. It’s possible that the intention is to have NPCs who approach the battle area disappear, but due to some kind of processing bug, the head still remains visible.

It should be noted that this battle at the entrance of the school is an event battle that occurs as part of the game’s story. Many of the event battles in the game take place in special locations, but this particular battle instead takes place in a regular area. It’s a location where NPCs regularly walk around and not somewhere that battles normally occur. The fact that the battle takes place under special circumstances may have introduced some unexpected processing issues that result in these graphical glitches.

Although there have been reports of NPCs barging their way into battles taking place in other locations too, we have not been able to confirm the severed head glitch in any battle other than the one at the school’s entrance. At the very least, this bug is not thought to have any effect on progression through the game, so there is no need to worry about any major problems occurring.

It’s also important to note that the developers have announced they are continuing to look into and fix bugs in the game to improve player experience. This rather unsettling bug may also be fixed in a future update to the game.

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-12-06 14:55 JST)