Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Vaccinates Its Pokemon

By Christian Hoffer

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is missing a long-standing part of the game, which may make training a competitive team a bit harder. Players in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have noticed that the game is missing the Pokerus virus, a beneficial "virus" that spreads from Pokemon to Pokemon, giving them twice as many EVs from battling wild Pokemon. Players often used Pokerus to quickly build a competitive team, as it decreased the amount of grinding a player needed to make sure their Pokemon had the ideal EVs (which buff a Pokemon's base stats) in competitive play. 

The longstanding Pokemon dataminer Mattyoukahuna noted on Twitter that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet doesn't even have Pokerus coded into the game. Not only does the Pokemon virus not exist in wild Pokemon, the game doesn't even support existing Pokemon (who will eventually be able to be transferred into Pokemon Scarlet and Violet via Pokemon Home) that are already infected with the disease. Matt forcibly gave a Pokemon Pokerus and found that it provided no benefits in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. 

It's unclear why Pokerus was cut from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. The virus is definitely a legacy feature, as it dates back all the way to Pokemon Gold and Silver. Perhaps developers felt that Pokerus was unnecessary content now that it's much easier to create a competitive team within the game. Or perhaps Game Freak decided that including a beneficial virus was in poor taste, given that the world was majorly impacted by a pandemic with no end at sight. Regardless, Pokerus seems to be a thing of the past.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are available now on the Nintendo Switch. You can follow our full coverage here.

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