Will players still wait for *Pokémon: Champions* after it started fixing bugs right after launch?

The first thing that got to me was a very small detail: the gender displayed for some Pokémon in the tutorial was actually wrong. For some players, this might seem like just a minor UI issue, but for those who have always seen Pokémon as “partners,” this kind of mismatch feels pretty obvious. It’s like you’ve carefully memorized a character, only to find they’re wearing their name tag backwards—it just feels a little off.

According to the latest blog from The Pokemon Works, Pokémon Champions will fix multiple major bugs in a future patch, and that statement came quickly—just one day after launch, the official team had already laid out a list of known issues. In terms of attitude alone, that’s certainly better than staying silent. At the very least, it shows they’ve seen players’ frustration and know these problems are already affecting the experience.

When it comes to characters, I’ve always cared a lot about whether a game delivers a solid sense of “companionship,” and system-level details are very much part of that emotional connection. Among the issues set to be fixed this time, it’s not just incorrect gender displays for some Pokémon in the tutorial and already-published cooperative teams—there are also quite a few bugs that directly affect the flow of battle. For example, the status description for “Leech Seed” was written incorrectly: the text says 1/16 of max HP, but the correct value should be 1/8. However, the official statement also notes that the actual damage calculation in battle itself is not wrong.

But what really pulled me out of the experience is that the problems this time don’t stop at the text level. Under certain conditions, when two Pokémon Mega Evolve at the same time, the evolution order may behave abnormally; while under the “Encore” status, “Lightning Rod” may also fail to trigger properly; and even when checking move details during battle, if the cursor is left on “Mega Evolution” and then the B button is pressed, it can directly lead to a situation where moves can no longer be selected. That’s no longer a minor flaw—it’s a serious issue that can break the rhythm of an entire match, like a mood that was just starting to build suddenly being interrupted by someone hitting the pause button.

To be fair, the official team did provide a temporary workaround: press the “-” button to open and then close the surrender window, and try to restore move selection that way. But when I read that, my first reaction wasn’t reassurance—it was more a kind of disappointment. In a new release that should feel smooth and easy to get into, players instead have to first learn “how to play around the bugs.” That really doesn’t feel right. On top of that, the blog also mentions that when sending Pokémon from Pokémon Home on expedition tasks, a communication error prompt may appear, which shows that the scope of the problems is no longer limited to individual battles.

What left a strong impression on me is that public opinion hasn’t completely turned positive just because the official response was so quick. Player reviews are already mixed, and performance issues, missing items, and insufficient content for some Pokémon have already driven quite a few people to quit. Now with these bugs piled on top, the overall impression naturally becomes even more complicated: it’s not that people can’t wait for patches, but rather that the sense of trust that should have been established on launch day has already been worn down a little.

If you’re a player still on the fence, my advice is simple: wait for the patch first, then decide whether it’s worth investing your time. Because what Pokémon Champions most needs to fix right now isn’t just a few display errors and move-related bugs, but the relationship between the players and the game—the feeling of “I’m willing to keep going with you.” A patch can fix numbers, and it can fix flow, but whether it can slowly rebuild that trust depends on whether the next few updates truly hit the pain points players care about most.