Pokemon Scarlet and Violet players reach space using sandwiches

Attempts to travel into space by using a bug while making sandwiches in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have attracted attention on social media in Japan.

In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, players are able to take a break from their adventure, set up a table, and enjoy a picnic with their Pokémon. During a picnic, you can make a baguette style sandwich that confers a variety of effects when eaten.

Players who are using sandwich making in their attempts to reach outer space have been posting the results of their research to Twitter using the hashtag “sandwich bakuhatsu gaku” (Study of sandwich explosions).

The first step in reaching outer space is to begin a picnic in a suitable location. According to posts from these players, you should set up your table on the viewing platform atop one of the windmills that are located nearby the West Province (Area One) – Central Pokémon center.

There have been reports that triggering the bug during sandwich making can result in a number of problems, such as causing the game to crash or losing the ability to control your trainer. So please keep in mind that if you are thinking about trying it out for yourself, you do so at your own risk.

The picnic table itself will serve as your rocket launching pad. When starting the picnic, you need to place the table so that it overlaps with one of the pillars on the outer edge of the platform. Now it’s time to finally start making sandwiches. If the upper left part of the plate is overlapped with the pillar, then you’re in the right spot. You need to use chorizos for the sandwich fillings, but the condiments you use don’t appear to matter.

Once you start making the sandwich, place a chorizo so that it gets lodged into the pillar. Now, continue to place more chorizos on the same spot so that they stack on top of each other. As you do this, you will see the camera viewpoint start to move higher. Be aware that, for some reason, once you reach a certain height, the view will flip upside down. Once reaching a height beyond the roof of the windmill, you will no longer be able to see the chorizos, so placing subsequent chorizos becomes a matter of trusting your gut and dropping them down into the windmill in an attempt to hit the right spot.

If you can continue to skillfully drop the chorizos, the viewpoint will get high enough to see the whole Paldea region, and going even further can bring you all the way into outer space. Based on what I (the original author of this article) could discover from my own attempts, at this point in the process, it’s quite difficult to find where the chorizos should be dropped, and I ended up just dropping them down towards the planet and watching them disappear. It seems that it’s necessary to find a trick to the chorizo placement if you hope to get yourself to outer space.  

When viewed from space, the world of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet appears as a smooth sphere depicted in a single color, so you can tell that it was never intended to be seen in this way. Additionally, the color of the planet changes depending on the time of day in-game; for example, it’s a shade of pink during the evening.   

Another game where it is possible to reach some rather unusual heights is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In that game, you can even see what appears to be the layers of the atmosphere (related article).

Even right after the game was released, players came up with a way to enjoy the sandwich making mode that had nothing at all to do with making a sandwich (related article). There is something about the physics used in this mode that players found interesting, and it has held their attention ever since.

Since the sandwich making mode can also be played with others online, you can try reaching outer space with some friends. Though, once again, please be aware of the risks involved with this bug.

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-03-07 20:11 JST)