Weird Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Hack Lets You Run Twice as Fast

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are full of technical problems, and the community has uncovered a hack that lets your Trainer sprint across the Paldea region at double speed.

First discovered on Reddit, players discovered that you can run twice as fast simply by connecting two controllers at once and holding both left joysticks down.

IGN’s Rebekah Valentine tested the hack by using the two Joy-Con controllers attached to the Nintendo Switch and a wirelessly connected Pro Controller, confirming that the exploit does work. According to IGN’s findings, it only seems to work for us when we run diagonally and in handheld.

Tested and confirmed the two controllers making you run double fast thing. Wow!!! pic.twitter.com/eHWUmrHPv7

— Rebekah Valentine (@duckvalentine) November 21, 2022

This exploit could definitely change the speedrun game for Scarlet and Violet, although it’s very possible it could be removed in a post-launch patch. It’s also somewhat cumbersome to pull off, as playing in handheld mode with an extra controller connected appears to be the only way to access the higher speed.

Scarlet and Violet’s technical problems were the biggest problem with the games in our review in progress, where we said, “It is, by far, the worst-running Pokémon game I have ever played, and among the worst-running AAA games I’ve played on the Switch so far.”

Upon launch, players quickly started to discover some of the issues for themselves, including Pokemon trainers bugged into the middle of battle, extreme framerate drops, falling through the world, infinitely falling into the ground, and more.

For more on Scarlet and Violet, check out how the rare virus Pokérus is no longer present in the new games. Or, check out our Pokémon Scarlet and Violet performance review, where we break down the technical issues players are experiencing.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.