How to Capture Mew in Pokemon GO

By Nicholas Barth · April 2, 2018 at 4:00 AM UTC

The legendary Pokemon Mew is extremely popular in the hit mobile game of the Pokemon franchise, but it is not an easy task to track and capture the rare creature.

The most recent update for Pokemon GO has introduced the quest line that will allow you to capture the mythic Pokemon Mew. The extremely rare Pokemon is now available for capture through the newly added Special Research quests that can be seen as the mobile game's first story missions.

All you have to do to unlock Special Research is tap the little binocular icon in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, where the Weather used to be. Once you hit the Special Research tab, a cutscene will begin and Professor Willow will explain his new project to you and give you some tasks to complete. Once you have completed each task, you will be given a new one to tackle, along with a reward. This process will continue until the very end where you will then be able to capture Mew.

Dataminers at Silph Road have revealed every single task you will need to complete in order to accomplish your goal of finding and capturing the legendary Pokemon. The tasks consist of the following:

Level One - "Spin five Pokestops, Catch 10 Pokemon and transfer five Pokemon"
Level Two - "Earn two candies walking with your buddy, make 10 great throws and hatch three eggs"
Level Three - "Reach level 15, battle in a gym two times and battle in two raids"
Level Four - "Earn a Silver Kanto Medal, evolve 20 Pokemon and earn five candies walking with your buddy"
Level Five - "Catch Ditto, make 20 great throws and catch 10 ghost Pokemon"
Level Six - "Reach level 25, battle in 10 raids and evolve a Magikarp"
Level Seven - "Catch 50 Pokemon using a berry, make one excellent throw and earn a Gold Kanto Medal"
Level Eight - "Catch Mew"

Trainers are now on their quests to capturing one of the most sought after Pokemon in the franchise. (Source: Niantic)

Some of the tasks are much more difficult and time consuming than the others, such as evolving a Magikarp or catching a Ditto. However, veteran players will most likely already have achieved some of these tasks, such as level requirements or earning the Kanto region medals.

With the majority of the end game content for Pokemon GO being based on some degree of randomness, the community is pleased with the introduction of the Special Research quests, as they let players know exactly what they must do if they would like to try their hand at obtaining one of the highest level rewards the game has to offer.

It will not be surprising to see Niantic create additional Special Research quests for players to tackle in order to get their hands on some of the other legendary creatures the Pokemon franchise has to offer, but for now players have a clear, albeit not easy, path to adding one of the most popular Pokemon in Mew to their collection.

Interested in more Pokemon content? Check out our story behind the discriminatory behavior that the Korean branch of Pokemon is being accused of.

(cover photo courtesy of Bulbapedia)