"Creepy Teal Mask Trainer": Pokemon Scarlet and Violet player shares clips of an NPC following them

Even a year after its launch, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet still have a few unusual visual and gameplay bugs that can rear their heads from time to time. Unfortunately, these very issues have haunted a Redditor as they traveled across Paldea. Funnily enough, this bug has come in the form of a fellow wandering trainer.

An entertaining and somewhat offputting glitch was posted on the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet subreddit by u/PittooPlays. But what could be causing this glitch? These occurrences are much more common than many players would think, so what could be a possible cause?

A screenshot of the Reddit post

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Reddit reacts to odd NPC glitch in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

A screenshot from the Reddit thread

This glitch is very common in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. In every video game, there are triggers for every action, from saving to picking up an item. This glitch occurs with the triggers for exiting areas. In most cases, these triggers are physical objects, but the game hides them by turning them invisible and placing them near world objects or landmarks that would take them to another location.

This remains true in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, but for whatever reason, the code that turns these triggers, or "anchor points," invisible does not activate. Normally, this only occurs in cutscenes, but some instances present them in-game as well. In most cases, this anchor point takes the shape of a Poke Ball, as reported in the comment on the Reddit thread posted above.

However, in some random cases, this default anchor point can be scrambled, setting the object assigned to the anchor point as something completely random, like a Pokemon or an NPC. This is what happened in the case of the main Reddit thread. For whatever reason, after they bought the DLC, the anchor point assigned to the player's game took the form of a Kitakami NPC.

Nevertheless, the appearance of some random child following the player around the region is definitely entertaining, if a little offputting. Given that this issue was caused by just a little slip of the code, it would be welcoming to see this glitch patched in a future update, especially considering how often it appears.

A screenshot from the Reddit thread

Thankfully, this glitch is purely visual, so it only makes for funny clips such as the ones posted. These sorts of anchor points are only viewable in certain buildings as well as in some cutscenes. This means that many players may not even see this glitch anymore after completing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's main story since all of the cutscenes would have been played already.

Regardless of whether or not this glitch is harmful, it can lead to some important and emotional cutscenes having their moments ruined by a surprise trainer standing in front of the camera. Hopefully, Game Freak has not abandoned the idea of applying more patches to the game so new players will likely have a better experience.