Creepy Pokemon Scarlet & Violet bug sees player stalked by Teal Mask NPC
The Pokemon CompanyA Pokemon Scarlet & Violet player is being relentlessly hounded by the player character from the Teal Mask DLC’s preview footage. What’s creepier is, they don’t even have the DLC.
The Pokemon franchise is no stranger to spooky stories. Hell, a whole mass outbreak was recently dedicated to Scarlet & Violet’s scariest mons. Even Pokemon Go has had its share of creepy happenings like spectral Alolan variants.
More recently the mysterious red-eyed Drilbur weirded fans out and that was before the Halloween events. Now more nightmare fuel is afoot and this one rivals the Lavender Town Syndrome stories.
Okay, maybe it’s not that scary, but it’s still pretty weird. Reddit user u/PittooPlays cannot seem to escape the character model from the Teal Mask’s promotional material.
According to u/PitooPlays, the NPC keeps spawning wherever they go and even features in cutscenes. “I keep finding the teal mask trainer appearing in buildings or areas you have to enter,” they explained.
What makes it such a spooky occurrence, aside from the fact that he “just stands there, menacingly”, is that u/PitooPlays doesn’t know how they got there. “I don’t own the DLC on Scarlet, only Violet, so I don’t understand why it keeps appearing,” they clarified.
Other players in the thread have offered their own explanations as to what’s going on here. One suggested that u/PitooPlays is “living a mid-late 2000s creepypasta” but offers no hint of how to escape.
A far more realistic explanation comes from another player who rightly suggests it’s one of the game’s many bugs, albeit a new one. “It’s that glitch where a Pokemon/Pokeball will mark the center of the room except much more terrifying,” they explained.
The Pokemon CompanyI suppose it makes sense that new bugs would emerge in patches for the DLC, given the state of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet at launch. Some of the model glitches from back then were the stuff of nightmares.
Maybe the games will get a little more polished when the second part of the Hidden Treasures of Area Zero DLC pack launches on December 14. Only time will tell.