Reports have surfaced of malicious hacked Pokemon being sent out for the Generation 8 Pokemon games as well as Pokemon HOME, which could lead to game crashes or forced reboots.

This information was shared by Pokemon dataminer @Sibuna_Switch, who detailed the issue via the following posts on Twitter. According to Sibuna, unsuspecting player may find themselves in possession of these malicious hacked Pokemon by trading with Pokemon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, Pokemon Sword/Shield, Pokemon Legends Arceus, and even Pokemon HOME. When traded to one of the Switch Pokemon games, the bad data hacked into the Pokemon will cause those games to either crash completely, or be forced to reboot when interacted with.

Thankfully however, the bug does not affect Pokemon HOME as severely, and it is possible to remedy the issue using the storage app. The hacked Pokemon can be identified by invalid markings, which will show up as dotted lines. After this, players simply have to change the markings and the Pokemon will lose its detrimental effects.

You can watch Sibuna’s videos documenting the effects of the hacked Pokemon, as well as how to fix them below:

If you find yourself with one of these Pokémon and can't release it, you can move it into Pokémon HOME to fix the markings. These invalid markings show up as dashed shapes rather than the usual solid ones! pic.twitter.com/5opt7lRsvx

— Anubis (@Sibuna_Switch) June 4, 2022

This is not the first time maliciously hacked Pokemon have plagued the community, with similar cases occurring as far back as Sword/Shield‘s initial release. At the time of this writing, The Pokemon Company has yet to acknowledge the existence of this problem. Stay tuned for more updates as they come.

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