Pokemon Scarlet and Violet players say performance is much better after patch 1.1

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet
(Image credit: Nintendo)

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet players are reporting significant performance boosts after the games' latest patch.

On December 1, Nintendo announced the release of the first post-launch patch for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, chiefly focused on introducing Ranked Battles, but also containing a number of bug fixes. After the update yesterday, many players are reporting Scarlet and Violet now run better on the Nintendo Switch, as evidenced by the post below.

Over on ResetEra, another post attests to the improved performance. Commenters on the post actually don't believe the original user's claims of improved performance at first, but there's a general sentiment of marvelling at Scarlet and Violet running a lot better, the further down the comments section you go.

It's worth noting that the players in question aren't saying Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are completely "fixed" by any means. Issues like stuttering might have been partially addressed by developer Game Freak with this new patch, but performance issues definitely remain throughout the two games.

Players previously believed this was caused by a memory leak, with Scarlet and Violet still rendering objects and locations long after they were out of sight of the player character. If that's truly the case, then the performance issues are going to take far longer than a few weeks of development time from Game Freak to sort out.

Alongside the new patch yesterday though, Nintendo finally acknowledged the ongoing performance issues and complains from players. With the promise of fixes still to come for Scarlet and Violet, we're guaranteed to see further patches down the line for various other performance issues. 

Here's why Pokemon Scarlet and Violet teaches we should be careful what we wish for

Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.