"Pokemon Sword and Shield" was met with criticism even before its launch after the developers confirmed the reduction of the roster. This obviously did not sit well with fans who were hoping to have an extensive collection in their Pokedex. Nintendo confirmed it has no plans to add more in the future, which is why longtime players of the franchise are disappointed. Moreover, data mining the game files show that most of the character models are just reused from older installments. Now hackers are taking matters into their own hands and adding the missing creatures into the game.

Since Game Freak does not seem to be budging on their decision, some gamers have taken things into their own hands. After reviewing the code within the game files, it was reportedly discovered that some of the missing Pokemon still exist as leftover code. This led data miners to speculate that the developers could possibly add these in the future as prizes for in-game events.

"we don't know if they're usable it's probably just leftover data" lol pic.twitter.com/Ia0gRKLndh

— Matt (@mattyoukhana_) November 16, 2019

In the meantime, there are those who have been using custom tools to tweak the program. Renowned hacker @SciresM shared some details with Polygon as to how it was possible to trick the game to display other character models instead. The next step required the use of a save file and an editor to make the replacement.

Well, that wasn't so hard.

Needs a ton more work, of course, but it's pretty cool to see it functioning. pic.twitter.com/KYm1nkMsXO

— Michael (@SciresM) November 18, 2019

Now, instead of the Yamper, which was originally in the party, a level 50 Omastar took its place. Those who have played "Pokemon Sword and Shield" know that it is not part of the roster, which makes its appearance both odd and welcome.

Animation on entering battle is pretty broken, but it works okay other than that.

Obviously stats are broken (didn't fix the personal entry yet), and this was originally an edited yamper that I didn't bother giving legitimate moves. pic.twitter.com/m1C8CzDQCt

— Michael (@SciresM) November 18, 2019

According to the hacker, the process is workable, but it might take some time to get all of the missing pokemon back. However, it should be noted that the animations are not exactly perfect. The project is still far from over as there are more files and code that need to be arranged to properly run the exploit.

"Needs a ton more work, of course, but it's pretty cool to see it functioning," wrote @SciresM "Bringing back old pokemon seems hard but doable to me," he added.

"Pokemon Sword and Shield" is now available for the Nintendo Switch.

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