‘Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’ Has a Game-Breaking Bug Involving Isabelle and Villager

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players have found a unique bug involving both Villager and Isabelle that causes the game to crash if the two fighters play a game of catch.

Game-breaking bug is a term that’s often used to exaggerate the severity of a bug, but in this case, the phrase fits seeing how this newly discovered interaction between the two fighters literally causes the game to shut down. A player by the name of andrewsbro shared a video on Reddit that showed what happens when Isabelle and Villager throw a projectile back and forth to each other with the game of catch eventually leading to an error message that said “the software was closed because an error occurred.

The video originally appeared on Reddit, but it was also shared on Twitter and can be seen below.

To make sure this wasn’t just a one-off issue, the player who posted the video on the Smash Bros. subreddit said they tried to replicate the bug three times in a row to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. They were able to crash the game each time they tried to do so, and other players corroborated that report to say that the game crashes on the third catch between the two regardless of who the catcher is.

For those who don’t play as the two fighters, it might be hard to make out what’s happening in the video, but the clip essentially shows the two lobbing a fighter-created projectile back and forth. Both Villager and Isabelle have a forward aerial move where they shoot a projectile from a slingshot, but the other fighter can counter that move by using their neutral special called “Pocket.” This lets them catch most projectiles and allows them to throw the attacks back at their senders, but in this case, the other player can also catch the projectile. By throwing a slingshot from a pellet back and forth between Villager and Isabelle, it apparently causes a situation that’s more than the game can handle.

Some players speculated that the game crash might be a result of a damage multiplier being applied to the projectile until it’s too large for the game to consider, but others pointed out that that might not be the case. Catching a projectile gives a 1.9x damage multiplier to the object when it’s thrown again, but it’s been reported that pocketing the item will reset that multiplier. There’s a chance this doesn’t happen with these two specific fighters though, but how exactly the bug is happening remains to be seen until Nintendo eventually addresses it in its patch notes.