Volcarona debut sparks intrigue in Pokémon Go’s next seasonal event—though it’s not all positive

Pokémon Go is moving into its next Rising Heroes seasonal event, this time bringing Spark and Team Instinct into the spotlight alongside the debut of another long-awaited Pokémon. But fans aren’t thrilled about the method for catching them. 

From May 2 to 8, the An Instinctive Hero event will have players helping Spark with new research. This will also be the first time Larvesta and Volcarona will be available in Pokémon Go, leaving only a handful of forms left until every Gen V creature is in the game. 

A special Elekid wearing an accessory themed after Spark will also be available. 

Unfortunately for anyone hoping to simply run into a Larvesta in the wild, that isn’t going to happen during its debut. The Torch Pokémon will only be available by hatching 2km, 5km, and 10km Eggs. Additionally, it will take 400 Candy to evolve a Larvesta into a Volcarona, which makes it being an Egg-exclusive encounter even worse for anyone who wants to quickly get the powerful Bug/Fire-type.

The Larvesta decision was likely a mix of trying to keep its original lore of being found in an Egg in Black and White and the An Instinctive Hero event using hatching Pokémon as a core theme, which is shown in the other content being included too. But even that’s confusing fans. 

Related: Pokémon Go receives unreleased Shiny Legendary and new Mega Evolution in May content update

Throughout the event, players will get double Candy and Stardust for hatching any Pokémon from Eggs. Additionally, Shiny odds have been increased for any Pokémon hatched out of 2km, 5km, and 10km Eggs.

But all of the featured Egg Hatch Pokémon in this event—like Mime Jr., Happiny, Timburr, Axew, Goomy, and several others—will only appear in event-exclusive 7km Eggs. That means they won’t benefit from the boosted Shiny odds, and Larvesta, the main encounter that players will want, is not even available as a Shiny yet. Additionally, Mantyke is included in that 7km Egg list and can be obtained as a Shiny for the first time, but won’t receive the boost. 

While Volcarona’s first appearance in Pokémon Go is hyping up some fans and the research included in the event should be worth completing, this is another instance where fans are pointing out Niantic’s odd decisions around featured content.