A Fix Is Coming For Paper Mario: The Origami King's Game-Breaking Bug

A game-breaking bug is halting players' adventures 20 to 30 hours into Paper Mario: The Origami King. The RPG's driving narrative force revolves around Princess Peach and her castle being held in place by enormous streamers atop a distant mountain. It's up to Mario to rescue the princess from the game's titular villain by travelling to different locations within the Mushroom Kingdom in order to destroy all five streamers.

As YouTube channel Nintendo Unity recently detailed, a game-breaking bug can destroy a players' save file on the fifth and final streamer, leaving those affected by the issue with the option to either delete their save and start again or wait for Nintendo to resolve the bug with a forthcoming patch.

Polygon reached out to Nintendo and were told that the studio is currently working on such a fix. "We are aware of reports about issues affecting some players of Paper Mario: The Origami King," a representative from the company said. "We are working to resolve these issues and plan to address them in a software update. We apologize for any inconvenience."

If you're currently playing through Mario's newest RPG adventure and don't want to lose hours upon hours of progress, it's worth knowing how to avoid the issue. As you make your way to the game's final streamer, you'll need to grab the Spring of Rainbows VIP card in the Shangri-Spa area. A Toad will take the card out of your possession permanently once you've entered the cave for the Spring of Rainbows, and if you progress forward the game will carry on as intended.

If you decide to turn around and leave the cave, however, Toad will treat Mario as though he still needs to give him the VIP card to get back inside. Since you've already handed it over and it's no longer in your inventory, there's no way of acquiring another one. Paper Mario only has one save file, and the game automatically saves when leaving the cave, so you're left stuck in limbo with no way to progress.

For the sake of those already affected by the game-breaking bug, hopefully Nintendo's fix isn't too far away. It's a shame, too, because aside from this, Mario's return to the paper world is a success. The game was awarded 8/10 in GameSpot's Paper Mario: The Origami King review. "Each piece of The Origami King elegantly fits into its whole, taking its irreverent flair to new heights," critic Suriel Vazquez said. "The Paper Mario series has recently shown that being clever and being smart are two different things, but thankfully, it's once again managed to be both."