Pokémon Champions‘ developer has publicly apologized for the game’s launch issues and detailed a list of bugs it plans to address in upcoming updates.
Pokémon Champions launched this week for Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, billed as the franchise’s dedicated platform for competitive battling. The launch has drawn a mixed reaction. Players have raised complaints about the game’s reduced Pokémon roster, which covers only a portion of the roughly 1,000 species in the franchise, as well as limited features and graphical quality many considered below the hardware’s capability. Some described the experience as “like a beta test,” and the developer’s current bug acknowledgment addresses only a portion of the reported problems.
An official statement from the developer, posted on April 9, acknowledged the problems and listed six confirmed bugs:
- The in-game description for the “Leech Seed” status effect is incorrect. It reads 1/16 of maximum HP; the correct damage is 1/8. The in-battle calculation itself is accurate.
- Under certain conditions, when both Pokémon Mega Evolve simultaneously, the evolution order may not resolve as intended.
- Some Pokémon in the tutorial display the wrong gender.
- Some Pokémon in officially released coordinated teams have incorrect genders.
- When a Pokémon in the Encore state faces a move that would trigger the “Lightning Rod” ability, the ability may fail to activate.
- When viewing move details during battle, hovering over “Mega Evolution” and pressing B can lock players out of selecting a move. As a temporary workaround, opening and closing the surrender window with the minus button resolves the issue.
“The above bugs are scheduled to be fixed in future data updates or maintenance,” the statement reads. “We will continue to investigate other issues not mentioned above. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Thank you for your continued support of Pokémon Champions.”
What the apology doesn’t cover
An earlier issue with transferring Pokémon from Pokémon Home, the cloud storage service that allows players to carry their collections across games, has already been fixed. But a widely reported resolution bug on Switch 2 is still unaddressed. Players running the game in docked mode receive lower image quality than the hardware produces in handheld mode. The only workaround is undocking and re-docking the console each time the game boots.
The Pokémon Company has positioned Champions as the franchise’s long-term competitive home, with plans to add Pokémon species and features over time. The company has said it aims to eventually support as many as 10,000 species, compared to the roughly 1,000 that exist across the franchise today. The launch version includes a subset of that figure, and no timeline for expansions has been announced.