Pokemon trainer stunned as hacked Gigantamax Charizard appears in battle

Game Freak have insisted that cheaters will be caught in Pokemon Sword and Shield, although some trainers are still seeing some really powerful hacked Pokemon make their way into online battles. 

The Galar Region is home to a whole host of new and old entrants to the Pokedex, some of which are strong enough already to take down many trainers in battle. However, some are always going to try to get an upper-hand, by accessing cheats and hacked ‘mons where they can.

This time, though, you have to give the cheater some credit. They haven’t even tried to hide the fact – jumping right into a battle with another player using a hacked Shiny Gigantamax Charizard.

Those who have ever been on the grind of Shiny hunting will know how hard it can be to find one, never mind one like this that’s so unlikely to appear.

It wasn’t the fact that it’s one of the rarest Pokemon to find in the latest titles that had alarm bells ringing, though, but rather something very specific. The dead giveaway this time, showing that it was a hacked Charizard, was its name. As seen in the Reddit post below, from user Assassinknife, shows that their opponent has been called “PkmLab.com.”

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As many will know already, they have been known to send out hacked Pokemon as part of surprise trades in the past and the names of those generated cannot be changed.

This might not seem like a huge issue for Pokemon Sword and Shield, as the amount of hacked species being used are likely to be very few online, but it does highlight the need for players to monitor those that they are coming up against.

After all, you wouldn’t want to be at a disadvantage.

How to block Pokemon Sword & Shield players

One way of ensuring that you don’t come up against a particular trainer again is to block them. Below is a step-by-step guide on how to do just that.

1. Get to the end screen first in your battle.
2. Press the plus or minus button on your Nintendo Switch controller.
3. You will see a notification appear. It says: “Who would you like to add to your block list?”
4. Select the player you wish to block and that’s that! Done.

It was only in February that members of the game’s community were in uproar about the amount of hacked monsters appearing in-game, and nobody wants to see a repeat of that.

That said, if trainers were to attempt to use these in competitive matches, they would get banned before you can say Wobbuffet.