The Times Square Mewtwo raid finally made good on Pokémon Go's 2015 promise

When Niantic released the first trailer for Pokémon Go in 2015, it looked like fantasy, hundreds of strangers converging on a single spot to battle a legendary creature. This week in New York City, that fantasy became reality.

Almost 2,000 players packed into Times Square on Thursday evening for a special raid, the centerpiece of the game's 10th anniversary celebration. The iconic billboards briefly went dark then lit up to reveal an escaped Mewtwo that had Mega Evolved, turning the plaza into a real-life version of what the trailer promised.

"When we first dreamt what Pokémon GO might become a decade ago, hosting more than a thousand people in a single, local raid battle was just a pipe dream," said Michael Steranka, VP of product at Scopely, which acquired Niantic's games business last year. "Seeing that vision become a reality in Times Square was the perfect way to celebrate 10 years of playing together with our community."

The anniversary event was a long way from the game's first community gathering in 2017, when thousands of players descended on Chicago only to find their plans foiled by network overloads and software issues. Steranka joined Niantic that same year to help coordinate that disastrous event, and he admitted during a press briefing that he thought he "should have been fired" for how things unfolded.

"I also quickly discovered from this experience that the Pokémon Go team does not point fingers," Steranka said. "Instead of trying to find someone to blame, everybody came together, and we spun up an offsite in Seattle to learn what went wrong and how to fix things."

That failure became a turning point. Niantic doubled down on in-person, community-focused events, which have been key to Pokémon Go's growth. According to Scopely, over 800 million people have downloaded the game since its launch, and the company generated $1 billion from it in 2025 alone, a notable number for a game whose core mechanics have barely changed.

For years, Niantic struggled to replicate that success with other augmented reality games like Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Catan: World Explorers. Scopely's games president, Ed Wu, attributes Pokémon Go's longevity to the company's focus on building communities. "What started as an invitation to explore the world around you has become something that brings players together across cities, countries, and cultures, from neighborhood meetups to celebrations that draw hundreds of thousands of people together," Wu said. Alibaba's bet against the touchscreen is smarter than…

Scopely views Pokémon Go as a "forever game", not just because of the franchise's expanding roster of monsters, but because new generations of players arrive with each mainline Pokémon game. The company is exploring ways to leverage how kids and parents introduce each other to the franchise, and how gyms can foster local communities.

This weekend's global Pokémon Go Fest will be the game's most ambitious event yet, with millions of players expected to participate in Mewtwo encounters and cooperative challenges worldwide. With new mainline Pokémon titles on the horizon, the decade-old mobile game is still finding room to grow. Ai2 opened every drawer in the AI cabinet. Here's what…