How to Get Free Mewtwo in Pokémon GO: 10th Anniversary Timed Research 2026
- Open the game and do two tasks: catch 10 Pokémon and power up Pokémon 10 times. That is the whole thing. It takes about ten minutes, costs nothing, and ends with a guaranteed perfect-IV Mewtwo, a Master Ball and 500 Mega Mewtwo Y Energy. The deadline is Sunday 6 September 2026 at 11:59 p.m. your local time.
- Completing the tasks is not enough — you have to claim the rewards. The research expires at the deadline whether or not the encounter is still sitting there unopened, so finish the catch rather than leaving it for later.
- ‘Maxed-out stats’ means maxed-out IVs, not a maxed-out Pokémon. The encounter is reported to arrive at level 20, and a perfect-IV Mewtwo at level 20 is 2,387 CP. The same Mewtwo at level 50 is 4,724 CP — the rest is yours to pay for, at roughly 475,000 Stardust.
- The quietly biggest prize is Mega Level 3. Reaching the third Mega Level normally takes 30 Mega Evolutions of that species. This Mewtwo arrives with it already unlocked for Mega Mewtwo Y.
Open Pokémon GO, catch 10 Pokémon, power up 10 times, claim the encounter. That is the entire process, it takes about ten minutes, it costs nothing, and every trainer in the world gets the same thing: a Mewtwo with perfect IVs and a special background, plus a Master Ball and 500 Mega Mewtwo Y Energy along the way. The one thing that can go wrong is the calendar — the research expires on Sunday 6 September 2026 at 11:59 p.m. local time, and rewards that have not been claimed by then are gone.
Pokémon GO turned ten this summer, and this is the giveaway that goes with it. It runs on both the iOS and Android versions of the game, which is where Pokémon GO has always lived; there is no console or PC version to worry about, and nothing to buy.
How do you get the free Mewtwo in Pokémon GO?
Two tasks, in any order, with no walking requirement beyond catching things. The Timed Research appears in your research list once you open the game during the event window.
| Task | Reward |
|---|---|
| Catch 10 Pokémon | 1× Master Ball |
| Power up Pokémon 10 times | 500× Mega Mewtwo Y Energy |
| Finish both | Mewtwo encounter |
Neither task is fussy. Any 10 Pokémon count, including whatever is spawning outside your window, and the ten power-ups can be spread across any Pokémon you like — including ten separate power-ups on one throwaway Pidgey, if that is the cheapest Stardust you have. Then take the encounter and throw a ball.
The one habit worth breaking here: a lot of players complete Timed Research and leave the final encounter sitting unopened as something to do later. The expiry applies to the claim, not just the completion. Finish the catch.
When does the free Mewtwo research end?
Sunday 6 September 2026, at 11:59 p.m. in your own time zone. That is the developer’s wording, and it is the same deadline everywhere — it does not roll over from a single global moment, so 11:59 p.m. in Auckland is not 11:59 p.m. in Los Angeles.
The opening is the part that is described inconsistently. The official announcement says the research became available at 4:00 p.m. PDT on Wednesday 12 August 2026, a single instant worldwide; a couple of community trackers write it as 4:00 p.m. local time instead. The distinction only mattered on launch day and it no longer affects anyone — the research is live now, and you have until 6 September.
Does “maxed-out stats” mean a maxed-out Mewtwo?
No, and this is the one thing worth understanding before you get excited. “Maxed-out stats” refers to Individual Values — the hidden 0-to-15 bonuses on Attack, Defense and Stamina. This Mewtwo is 15/15/15, a “hundo”. What it is not is maxed out in the sense most people mean, which is level.
| Level | CP at 15/15/15 |
|---|---|
| 20 | 2,387 |
| 25 | 2,984 |
| 40 | 4,178 |
| 50 | 4,724 |
Community trackers report the encounter arrives at level 20, which for a perfect Mewtwo is 2,387 CP. The ceiling for the same Pokémon is 4,724 CP at level 50. So the free gift is roughly half the combat power of a finished Mewtwo, and the other half is a bill you pay yourself.
That is not a complaint — perfect IVs are the part you cannot buy, grind or reroll, and they are exactly the part being given away. Levels you can always add later. But “maxed-out” in the announcement and “maxed out” in a player’s head are two different claims, and only the first one is being made.
What does it cost to power it up?
Roughly 475,000 Stardust to take it from level 20 to level 50, and 296 Candy XL you probably do not have. Adding up the published per-power-up costs across that range:
| Stretch | Stardust | Candy |
|---|---|---|
| Level 20 → 40 | 225,000 | 248 |
| Level 40 → 50 | 250,000 | 296 XL |
The second row is the wall. Candy XL for a Legendary only comes from catching it, walking it, or trading it, and 296 of them is a long project for a Pokémon you cannot farm at will. Most players will stop somewhere in the level 30s or at 40 and be perfectly happy — a 4,178 CP perfect Mewtwo is already one of the strongest attackers in the game.
If you only power up once, do it after you have decided what the Mewtwo is for. Its raid moveset and its Master League moveset are not the same, and Stardust spent in the wrong direction is not refundable.
What else does the research give you?
A Master Ball and 500 Mega Mewtwo Y Energy, both worth more than they look. The Master Ball is a guaranteed catch with no fleeing and no wobble — the item players hoard for years waiting for the right target. Getting one for catching ten Pokémon is the best exchange rate this game has offered in a while.
The 500 Mega Energy is the practical half of the Mega reward. Energy is what actually powers a Mega Evolution, and 500 is enough to get Mega Mewtwo Y going immediately rather than waiting to farm it from raids.
Why is Mega Level 3 the underrated part?
Because reaching it normally takes 30 Mega Evolutions of the same Pokémon, and this one arrives with it done. Mega Levels are a loyalty track: one Mega Evolution gets you to Base, seven total gets you to High, and thirty total gets you to Max — the third level.
| Mega level | Evolutions | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Base | 1 | 7 days |
| High | 7 | 5 days |
| Max | 30 | 3 days |
At Max you get the largest catch bonuses — 2 bonus Candy, 100 bonus XP and a 25% Candy XL boost when catching Pokémon that share a type with your Mega — and the shortest wait before you can Mega Evolve again without spending Energy. A 2026 update added a fourth tier above these, Super Max, reached by spending Mega Energy on a Pokémon that has already hit Max, which cuts the rest period to 24 hours. So the free Mewtwo does not top the ladder any more, but it starts you three rungs up it, and skipping 29 Mega Evolutions of a Legendary is not a small gift.
Can the free Mewtwo be shiny?
Reportedly yes, but nobody official has said so. Two outlets covering the event say the encounter is shiny-eligible, and players have reported catching shiny perfect ones — a “shundo”, which is about as good as this game gets. None of the developer’s own text mentions shiny at all, so treat it as a lottery ticket attached to a prize you have already won rather than a reason to do anything differently. There is no way to reroll the encounter, so what you get is what you get.
What if you were at the Times Square event?
You get a different Mewtwo and different rewards. Trainers who caught a Mewtwo at the in-person event in New York’s Times Square on 9 July 2026 are excluded from the duplicate — the developer says they receive a Mewtwo with different stats and different rewards, and community trackers report the Master Ball is replaced with 30 Mewtwo Candy for those players.
The Times Square background itself is not gone for good; the announcement says it will be available again at some point in the future, without giving a date. That is also the backdrop to this whole giveaway: the July event was in-person only, a lot of players said so loudly, and a worldwide perfect Mewtwo is the answer to that.
Everyone else — including anyone who has not opened the game since the Pokémon games moved on without them — just needs to log in before 6 September.
How we verified this
The dates and the reward list come from the developer’s own announcement. The event window, the “maxed-out stats and a Special Background” wording, the third Mega Level and the Times Square exception are all from the official Pokémon GO news post and Scopely’s version of it, both published 12 August 2026.
The two task lines are from community trackers, not from the developer. The official post does not itemise the research. Leek Duck, Pokémon GO Hub and Pokétory independently list the same two tasks and the same rewards — catch 10 Pokémon for a Master Ball, power up 10 times for 500 Mega Energy — so that is what this guide prints.
The start time differs between sources and we used the developer’s. The official post says the research opened at 4:00 p.m. PDT on 12 August; two trackers write “4:00 p.m. local time”. Those are not the same event — one is a single global moment, the other is 24 different ones. The deadline is unambiguous in every source, including the official one, and is local.
The CP figures are calculated, then checked against a published chart. We computed them from Mewtwo’s base stats (300 Attack, 182 Defense, 214 Stamina) at perfect 15/15/15 IVs using the game’s standard CP formula, and the results match a published Mewtwo CP chart at all four levels quoted: 2,387 at level 20, 2,984 at 25, 4,178 at 40 and 4,724 at 50. The level-20 figure is only the CP of that level — that the encounter itself arrives at level 20 is a community report, not something the developer has stated.
The power-up totals are our own addition of one published cost table. We summed the per-power-up Stardust and Candy rows from level 20 to level 50: 225,000 Stardust and 248 Candy to reach level 40, then 250,000 Stardust and 296 Candy XL to reach level 50. That comes from a single source’s table, so treat the totals as the right order of magnitude rather than to the last Stardust. The Candy XL figure of 296 does appear in two places.
Shiny is reported by players, not promised by the developer. Two independent outlets say the encounter can be shiny and that players have reported shiny perfect catches. No official text says so, so do not count on it.