One of the lynchpin elements to the ever-popular Nuzlocke challenge, Set Mode’s removal from the latest generation of Pokémon games shocked experienced players. As highlighted by a Reddit thread posted Dec. 30, fans still aren’t over the decision that continues to lack a concrete answer as to why it happened.
Amongst all the gripes highlighted by the community upon the release of Scarlet and Violet, the lack of Set Mode truly irked much of the older fan base. This alternate method of battling forced players into switching between Pokémon during their turn upon the entry of a new opponent. The regular system gives players the chance to bring in another of their team before the turn phase officially begins. In short, Set Mode was a welcome (and completely optional) increase in difficulty for a series of games that understandably gets easier with age.
To this day, we still have no clue as to why exactly Set Mode isn’t a thing anymore. With no official statement to go on, fans have been left to theory craft with plenty of wild thoughts to comb through should you have the time. “It’s more likely that they found some sort of bug in QA testing with the story content that would have taken reworking to fix,” mused one Reddit user. “Given their tight deadlines, I can totally see somebody giving the go-ahead to just disable the feature in singleplayer to meet deadlines.”
Of all the suggestions, this one lines up best with both Game Freak’s track record and the particular case of Scarlet and Violet. The trip to Paldea will best be remembered as one that could have been, undoubtedly, the best Pokémon experience in the franchise’s 30-year history. Despite its mature story and very well-received DLC, technical gremlins persist to a frustrating degree. Losing Set Mode to a release deadline would not surprise anyone given the state of the games upon release in Nov. 2022.
More to the point, Game Freak would have every reason to believe that chasing up on a fix simply wouldn’t be worth their time. Players can artificially enforce the effects of Set Mode, which is why those who embark on the aforementioned Nuzlocke challenges haven’t found themselves overly inconvenienced.
Yet, it’s this potential mindset that many are worried about. If they didn’t bother with Set Mode, what could be next? The era of Pokémon in 3D continues to tire rather than inspire.
