Hacked Pokemon plague Scarlet & Violet surprise trades despite promised crackdown

❘ Published: 2023-01-30T21:59:28

❘ Updated: 2023-01-30T21:59:41

Despite The Pokemon Company’s warning against using “illegally modified data,” Scarlet & Violet’s surprise trades are full of hacked Pokemon, items, and Shinies.

On November 11, 2022, The Pokemon Company released a statement on their official Japanese website, explaining actions taken against hacked Pokemon. “We have confirmed that some users are playing the ‘Pokémon’ series and ‘Pokémon HOME’ using illegally modified data,” TPCi stated, followed by a list of consequences for offenders.

Players caught using hacked Pokemon face the following penalties: restriction of online play for all Pokemon titles, limited use of trading features in Pokemon HOME, or an indefinite suspension from Pokemon HOME.

However, it seems that this warning is not heeded as players often encounter bots trading hacked Pokemon while using Pokemon Scarlet & Violet’s Surprise Trade feature.

The Pokemon Company

Hacked Pokemon run wild in Pokemon

A video of a trainer meeting a trading robot was posted on Reddit by user MayorLardo. As they surprisingly traded an Iron Thorns, their trading partner’s name appeared on the screen: zacian.net.

Players with name URLs are rarely real people, and after receiving a perfect Shiny Froakie holding a Master Ball, it was confirmed that this was a hacked Pokemon from a bot trainer. “Already? Why?” Lardo wrote the text of the post wondering why they ran into bot trading so early in the game’s life.

And this irritation was repeated throughout the comments. “When I did the story I got a shiny ditto from Italy from the same zacian.net,” commented one user. Another stated: “I got a shiny Lucario in a wonder trade yesterday, checked the OT to see it was hacked…and dropped it, thinking I was doing my part to reduce the scourge of hacked mons, but I feel like it’s a losing battle when they dispose of hundreds/thousands of those poor people.”

While many trainers shared the feeling that these generated Pokemon were not welcome, others didn’t see why there was such a fuss. “What do you mean already? You get free master balls. What’s the problem?”

Another trainer claimed that they intentionally started Wonder Trading when they saw bots active in Sword & Shield. They would take the items and release the Pokémon, resulting in around 15 Master Balls and 20 Ability Patchers.

While this may be alarming to players wary of being banned, it shouldn’t stop trainers from Surprise Trading. Many of these Pokémon are “generated” or “cloned”, which are not illegal. And if players are traded with a “hacked” Pokemon, all they have to do is drop it and they should be fine.