Thousands of ‘Pokémon Go’ Players Descend on Times Square to Defeat Mewtwo - WIRED

The air in Times Square on Thursday evening is electric. Not only because it was raining and thousands of Pokémon are virtually flinging attacks like Thunderbolt and Hyper Beam at the legendary Mega Mewtwo Y, but also because more than 1,500 real-world trainers found themselves at one of the largest in-person Pokémon battles in history.

The event marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of Pokémon Go, the mobile game by Niantic that took the world by storm in 2016. The game—a mixed-reality hunting game that plays out in real physical locations as viewed through the players’ phones—attracted more than 130 million downloads in its first month and a record peak of 232 million active players the same year, generating nearly $1 billion in revenue.

Niantic’s effort to turn it into one of the first mobile “forever games” has been successful, with more than $9 billion in lifetime player spending, according to data from AppMagic. Last year, Niantic's games business was acquired by Scopely —one of the largest mobile video game publishers in the world, with titles like Monopoly Go! under its belt—for $3.5 billion.

Right before its debut, the game's first trailer promised all sorts of capabilities that weren't available at launch. The video showed players trading Pokémon with friends, battling other trainers, and, at the very end of the clip, a swarm of trainers making their way to Times Square, where every billboard has been taken over to visualize a massive fight against the formidable Mewtwo. Yet in 10 years of live Pokémon Go Fests around the world, the company has never re-created that scene—until now.

“We sort of made promises to players on the type of game that this was going to be,” says Michael Steranka, vice president of product at Scopely, who has worked on Pokémon Go at Niantic since 2017. “Now, 10 years later, when we look back at that trailer, we feel like we've actually delivered on a lot of the promises made there.”

Invites were sent out to 2,000 Pokémon Go players across the five boroughs of New York City through community ambassadors. (The event was made an invitation-only affair to avoid overcrowding in what is already one of the busiest places on Earth.) The players only knew about thematic raids happening in the vicinity of Times Square, according to Mark Van Lommel, Scopely’s director of marketing communications.

At a certain time in the evening, notifications went out through the game asking ticketed players to head to Times Square for a special event, where they were treated to a live EDM concert by Loud Luxury, after which Mega Mewtwo Y took over the many screens and a united battle kicked off. (Mega Mewtwo Y was ultimately defeated.)

The event was livestreamed on all of Pokémon’s websites and social channels, and this weekend a special Pokémon Go Fest Global virtual event will bring the same Mega Mewtwo Y gameplay experience to all trainers, sans the Times Square screens. “Everyone around the world can play that for free this weekend,” Van Lommel says.

Scopely says more than 800 million people have played Pokémon Go over the past decade, with more than 1 trillion Pokémon caught to date. In 2024, it had more than 100 million active players, and in 2025 it generated $1 billion in revenue. Daily engagement from active players is around 45 minutes, and players have walked more than 62 billion miles hunting for PokéStops and Pokémon.

Kim Adams, vice president of Game Development at Pokémon Go, says that in the last two years, the company has gone from 50 community ambassadors—vetted volunteers who lead and organize local real-world gaming groups—to more than 3,000 around the world.

For live events—a marquee feature that makes it unique among other mobile games— Pokémon Go sold nearly 1 million tickets in 2024. And since last year, the company says, it has seen double-digit engagement growth, with daily playtime up 10 percent and real-world exploration up 29 percent.

The capacity to handle thousands of players simultaneously participating in a raid hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Howie Ragunton, a US Federal Aviation Administration worker who has been playing the game since its release in 2016, says he remembers the first 2017 Pokémon Go Fest in Chicago, which was a disaster due to overloaded cell networks and unstable servers. “They've learned throughout the years,” he says.