Weird Pokemon Sword & Shield bug turns Gyarados into a Beyblade

David Purcell
Gyarados bug in Pokemon Sword & Shield

Pokemon Sword and Shield players have been noticing some very strange movements in the Wild Area, with a bug seemingly causing Gyarados to spin around in circles like you’ve never seen before. 

There are a number of different places to explore in the Galar Region, with water found not just on the coasts but in land as well, filled with Pokemon to find, battle, and catch.

Now, one of the flying and water-type Pokemon’s moves might be Twister, but this glitch makes it like a Beyblade more than anything, and it’s shocking players as they walk past it in overworld encounters.

Gyarados in Pokemon
Gyarados usually powers through the water majestically, but there’s nothing majestic about how it looks with this new bug.

The hilarious bug has been flagged by quite a few trainers now, with Reddit users AMilkBox and JonesSodaRs having posted about it on the Sword and Shield subreddit.

AMilkBox posted: “This Gyarados made me laugh so I wanted to share it,” along with the clip.

While in other games like Call of Duty, FIFA, or something like Apex Legends, where bugs can become quite irritating, the general consensus around this one is actually one of laughter. People have been just standing there, admiring the character as it spins around over and over again. After all, you don’t see stuff like this often in Pokemon games.

It’s unclear as to how long Gyarados does this before the effect wears off, but it seems to be triggered by encounters – when approaching a trainer. Whether or not this impacts them to catch the Pokemon is also unknown.

One Reddit user responded: “He’s just practicing his Twister give em some time,” with another said: “It’s just practicing Whirlpool!”

Now, we have to presume that this is a bug that’s forcing Gyarados to act in this way, but it would be quite funny if it was a change in behavior. The next time you throw Gyarados into battle you may see it flop around in circles – making the evolved form of Magikarp just as useless as its predecessor. Never going to happen, but it would be a funny transformation.

There’s no way of telling if Game Freak are looking into the problem, but hopefully it will get back to normal soon.

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