Pokémon Champions launched on Nintendo Switch on April 8 to a troubled debut, with players running into multiple bugs and discovering that content shown in pre-release trailers was absent from the game. The Pokémon Company has issued a formal apology and outlined a series of fixes coming in an upcoming patch.
Pokémon Champions is a dedicated competitive battle simulator for Switch, separate from the main series games, that lets players transfer their Pokémon from the Pokémon Home storage app and use them in battles. The game’s launch drew immediate complaints from players who hit game-breaking bugs, including one that left Pokémon stuck in a limbo state after a failed transfer from Home. That specific issue has since been resolved ahead of the broader patch.
The company’s apology statement, originally published in Japanese and translated by Pokémon fansite and database Serebii, acknowledged five confirmed bugs the team is working to address. The apology came roughly 24 hours after Pokémon Champions went live, with players cataloguing issues throughout launch day. The Pokémon Company said it will continue investigating additional issues beyond those listed. A two-hour maintenance window is scheduled for 6 p.m. Eastern tonight to deploy the fixes.
The confirmed bugs
The five issues named in the apology cover a range of problems, from misleading text to fundamental battle mechanics:
- Leech Seed’s in-game description is inaccurate and understates how much damage the move deals
- When both players use a Mega Evolution in the same turn, the transformation animations play in the wrong order
- A Gallade in the tutorial and some recruitable Pokémon display an incorrect gender
- The Lightning Rod ability can stop functioning after an opponent has used Encore in the same battle
- Hovering over the Mega Evolve option during attack selection locks the player out of choosing a move
The Gallade error will stand out to series fans: Gallade is a Pokémon that can only be male in the main games by design, making the appearance of a female Gallade in the tutorial a clear oversight rather than an intentional change.
Missing content from trailers
Beyond the bugs, players have flagged that Mega Raichu X, a form shown in promotional material for Pokémon Champions, does not appear in the released game. The Pokémon Company acknowledged it is looking into that and other reports of absent content, but gave no timeline for when missing features might be added.
Absent launch content is a recurring issue with live-service games, and Pokémon Champions fits the pattern. Players who jumped in at launch are finding the experience meaningfully different from what was shown before release.
The company said it will keep monitoring player reports and investigating problems beyond those already named. No details on future update schedules have been shared beyond tonight’s maintenance window.