As you know, the Pokemon series has a few creatures that will only evolve if they are a specific gender. The most famous of which are probably Combee and Salandit, which only evolve into Vespiquen and Salazzle if they are female.

Recently, Pokemon Sword And Shield players discovered a bug that allows them to evolve male Combees and Salandits into their female-only evolutions. This bug can also be used to evolve “evolution-locked” Pokemon like Gigantamax Pikachu, Eevee, and Meowth, but this will cause them to lose their Gigantamax forms.

The exploit is an extension of the Egg bug that was discovered previously, and requires the following steps:

1. Have three Pokemon in the party in this order: One fully-evolved Pokemon, A female Combee/Salandit, A male Combee/Salandit.
2. Attempt to use an EXP candy on the fully-evolved Pokemon, enough to allow the Combee/Salandit to evolve.
3. As you are using the candy, immediately press “down” and keep it held.
4. The experience will go to the female Combee/Salandit, but the male one in the third slot will evolve.

You can view the bug in action in the following video by Austin John Plays:

As seen in the video, the most obvious application of this is to evolve male shiny Combees and Salandits that would otherwise be stuck in their base forms. So if you happen to have one lying around, now is your chance to get it evolved.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.