Nintendo’s Metroid Dread has a bug: here’s how to avoid it

Nintendo is working to fix a bug in recently-released Metroid Dread that could halt your progression if you’re unlucky enough to encounter it, the company has announced. According to a support page the bug causes the error message “The software was closed because an error occurred,” forcing it to close unexpectedly. Nintendo says the patch will be released before the end of the month.

Until this patch is released, however, players will need to avoid triggering the bug, which can apparently occur near the end of the game if the player “destroys a door while a map marker for that specific door is displayed on the map.” Thankfully, that means recovering from the crash when it occurs is fairly simple. Here’s what Nintendo says you should do if your game crashes:

“Restart the game and, before playing through this sequence, remove the door icon map marker to prevent this error from occurring.”

Metroid Dread was released last week on October 8th, and represents the first all-new 2D Metroid game in almost two decades (not including remakes like Metroid: Samus Returns). It’s been broadly positively received, although The Verge’s own Andrew Webster notes that the game’s controls can struggle to keep up with its more hectic action sequences, of which there are far too many.