Pokemon Go Bug Out 2024 focuses on the wrong Bug-types

The return of Pokemon Go’s Bug Out event focuses on common early-game Bug-type Pokemon, missing a great opportunity to show up an oft-overlooked type.

If you’ve picked up Pokemon Go in the last couple of days, you’ve probably noticed the ongoing Bug Out, which is putting creatures like Combee, Burmy, and Cutiefly front and center. This is the fourth occurrence of this not-quite-annual event, following Bug Outs in 2019, 2020, and 2022.

Some of the Pokemon featured in the Bug Out aren’t particularly common, making the event a great chance for trainers to fill out their Pokedexes, however, given what Pokemon are featured and fans’ general feelings on Bug-type Pokemon, the event is also a pretty big missed opportunity.

As a concept, a Pokemon Go event centered on Bug-types is a great idea. These Pokemon aren’t usually the most popular, but the franchise has plenty of standout Bugs with great designs, stats, and unique abilities. Unfortunately, the Pokemon that Niantic chose to feature in the event, particularly when it comes to wild spawns and Collection Challenges, are generally underwhelming.

Most of the Bugs players will find during this year’s Bug Out are common early-route catches in the mainline games. Pokemon like Caterpie, Weedle, Wurmple, and Sewaddle are designed to be easy to train and evolve, introducing new players to core Pokemon mechanics.

However, their poor base stats and the Bug-type’s many weaknesses make them less useful as the game goes on, encouraging players to swap them out to create a more powerful team.

Making Pokemon like these more common for an event like Bug Out makes sense. The problem is the event doesn’t do enough to spotlight other, arguably better, Bug-types. There are plenty of other Bug Pokemon that could really benefit from the spotlight, and while the event’s Raid and Field Research encounters expand the options a bit, there are other glaring omissions that would have made for a better event.

Much of the player frustration surrounding the event has to do with its choice of Pokemon as evidenced by a Reddit post from a player who had hoped to farm Larvesta Candy during the Bug Out. As a rare Bug-type with a popular evolution in Volcarona that takes a lot of Candy to evolve, Larvesta would have been a perfect choice for the event.

But as the comments show, the event instead has trainers asking for “any remotely useful bug type Pokémon” over all the worms.

What makes this more disappointing is that there are great Bug-types like Volcarona, Vivillon, and Galvantula – not to mention Ultra Beasts and Paradox Pokemon – that the event completely leaves out. Bug Out 2024 could have helped change players’ perception of a Pokemon type by highlighting the cool and powerful Bug-types the franchise has to offer.

Instead, its underwhelming roster reinforces the misconception that Bug-type Pokemon are mostly early-game worms with nothing to offer your team.