Pokémon Sword and Shield Softlocks Fixed! (Patreon)

Hey Patrons! We've got a HUGE update – At long last, we have fixed the softlocks in Pokémon Sword and Shield! This game should now be fully playable in yuzu! This fix is available in the latest yuzu Early Access build.

After so many hours debugging this game, we were quite certain that this elusive bug was something tricky buried deep in yuzu's core code. What we didn't expect is that it would be as simple as:

When debugging an audio bug in Toki Tori, bunnei discovered that the issue was a floating point bug in our CPU emulation, but did not narrow down the exact cause. However, with that in mind, MerryMage was able to quickly spot the issue. The bug was not in our CPU JIT itself, but rather how we initialize threads. This is a valuable reminder that we must work to fix all games in yuzu, as you never know how a bug in a game like Toki Tori might also manifest in Pokémon. (Fun fact – Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was also fixed by debugging Final Fantasy 8!)

That one-line change has fixed so many things! As of this post:

• Pokémon Sword and Shield – all softlocks fixed, running in tall grass fixed, hair salons fixed, animation looping fixed
• Zelda Link's Awakening – miniature placing fixed
• Toki Tori, FF7, Diablo 3, MEGA39s, A Hat in Time – distorted audio fixed
• Team Sonic Racing – physics fixed
• Onimusha Warriors, Tales of Vesperia, The Messenger – game logic fixed
• Skyrim – audio looping fixed, game progresses further
• Oninaki – elevator softlock fixed
• All Unreal Engine 4 games – motion jitteriness fixed
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – fighter select jitteriness / flickers fixed
• Starlink – softlock fixed, game progresses further

...And there is probably much more! We hope you enjoy this update, especially playing Pokémon end-to-end in yuzu now! Note, we are already hard at work improving performance, expect to see changes here soon.  Lastly, we look forward to any newly fixed games that you discover!

As always – thank you for your support, and stay safe!

- The yuzu development team