The Pokémon Company pulled off something genuinely special in New York City today. As part of Pokémon Go's 10th anniversary celebrations, Mewtwo took over Times Square, not just on screens but in the game itself, with thousands of trainers gathering to relive the moment that started it all.
For anyone who remembers the original 2016 Pokémon Go announcement trailer, the scene it painted was almost too good to be true: hundreds of players flooding Times Square, phones out, battling a legendary Pokémon together. A decade later, The Pokémon Company made that scene real. The trailer played across nearly every billboard in Manhattan's famous hub before players joined a live Unity Raid against Mewtwo.
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What actually happened in Times Square
The event kicked off with the original announcement trailer broadcasting simultaneously across Times Square's iconic screens. That alone would have been a moment. What followed was better.
Players on the ground were able to battle Mewtwo directly in Pokémon Go through a Unity Raid, a format that lets thousands of trainers take on a single Pokémon at once. The Mewtwo available at the event was a special version exclusive to attendees, meaning if you were not physically in Times Square today, you missed this particular catch.
Mega Mewtwo X and Y enter the game
The anniversary event also served as the formal introduction of Mega Mewtwo X and Mega Mewtwo Y into Pokémon Go. These arrive through a brand-new raid tier called Super Mega Raids, and the requirements are steep. You need at least 8 trainers to even attempt one, and here's the thing: these bosses can activate shields that only Mega Evolved Pokémon can break through.
That mechanic alone changes how serious players will need to approach raid composition. Showing up with a strong non-Mega lineup is not going to cut it against shielded Mega Mewtwo. You will want a coordinated group with Mega Evolved attackers ready before the shields go up.
Ten years of Pokémon Go in perspective
Pokémon Go launched in 2016, originally developed by Niantic and built on technology that traces back to a Google Maps project that placed Pokémon across real-world locations. The game became a cultural event on a scale that few mobile titles have matched before or since, with parks, landmarks, and public spaces filling with players in ways nobody had quite anticipated.
The franchise used that momentum to expand further. Nintendo released Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee on Switch, both of which borrowed catching mechanics directly from Pokémon Go, acknowledging how much the mobile game had reshaped how people interact with Pokémon as a series.
Recreating the original trailer's climactic Times Square scene as a real, playable event is a sharp way to mark a decade. What most players miss is how rare it is for a game to still be culturally significant enough ten years in to pull off a stunt like this at one of the most visible locations on the planet.
If you enjoy monster-catching games with a location-based twist, blockchain Monster Hunt is worth exploring as another title in the genre. For a closer look at how it plays, check out our in-depth review or browse the full strategy guides to get started.
