Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Save File Corruption Incident
The players of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet reported that the recent patch has introduced a fatal problem that causes them to lose their entire save files. According to Reddit, the new feature in which players can send postcards to one another has caused some players to lose hundreds of hours of progress after syncing the game with Pokémon Go. Some players have had their saves deleted by downloading the DLC, and some players had their shinies lost due to the purchase of the DLC. Others even lost their save files after doing all of the above and sending multiple postcards before the bug hit. While there were some players who didn’t suffer from any issues regarding their save files, some lost hundreds of shiny Pokémon due to the save file corruption.
The game, sadly, isn’t expected to recognize the corrupted save file, and even using the ‘save recovery’ method has not been successful. Players even tried reaching out to customer support to retrieve their lost Pokémon but received little help. The customer service representatives at Nintendo reportedly suggest to wait for the compatibility of transferring Pokémon onto the Pokémon Home app for recovery of corrupted save files. While the bug seems to have affected only some players, it could occur to anyone. It is currently unknown when Nintendo will respond to this issue, so it might be wise to hold off on buying Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s DLC and pre-order bonuses until new information arises.