Pokémon's Lost Legend: What They HID About Mew Will Shock You!

Searching for Mew: the story of Pokémon's greatest mystery

Pokémon's Lost Legend: What They HID About Mew Wil...

As part of our 30th anniversary celebration of Pokémon, we're dusting off some gems from the archives. Today, we present a special, long-form excerpt from ON Games Volume 2, diving into the genesis of a legend.

This excerpt explores how the allure of the undiscovered – and a healthy dose of accidental discovery – propelled Pokémon to global stardom, and how that same spirit resonates today. It all begins with the tantalizing whisper of a secret, a 151st Pokémon lurking within the code of Pokémon Red, Blue, and Green. Finding it, though, was a puzzle of epic proportions, demanding a detour from the game's intended path.

Picture this: you venture south from Vermilion City, surfing east of the jetty, the very one that leads to the perpetually departing SS Anne. Beyond the ship, almost tauntingly, lies a small, unassuming patch of land. Reaching this sliver of earth wasn't straightforward. It required bypassing a ticket inspector – a glitch or clever workaround, depending on who you asked – and having a friend’s Pokémon capable of using Surf prematurely. Remember those days of playground bartering for knowledge?

And there it was. On that tiny patch of land, a solitary, abandoned truck sat just out of reach from any legitimately accessible area. Curiously, and perhaps fueling the legend, it's the only truck model in the entire game. The rumour mill went wild: use a Pokémon with the move Strength to push the truck aside, and a Poké Ball containing the mythical Mew would be revealed. It was the ultimate Pokémon urban legend.

I remember trying, as a kid, desperately trying. Glitch discovery proved elusive, and the ticket inspector remained stubbornly un-bypassable. "Trying everything" back then meant repeatedly engaging with the same stubborn NPC, bumping into the same path-blocking fencing, or gazing wistfully at the passing sea, where the truck remained unmoved, and Mew undiscovered. The frustration was real.

However, as time passed and obsession evolved from experiencing the mystery to understanding it, the truth emerged: there was no Mew under the truck. But a secret, 151st Pokémon *was* hidden within the game, and that Pokémon was indeed Mew. Whispers of this mythical creature were everywhere, hinted at in scribbles and secret labs within the game. The existence of Mewtwo only solidified the belief.

But here's the kicker: rather than a deliberate, hidden Easter egg planted by developer Game Freak, the real Mew wasn't meant to be found at all! Its discovery, and the subsequent rumors that transformed Pokémon's initially modest Japanese sales into a global phenomenon, occurred entirely by accident. Or at least, that's the prevailing narrative. Is that truly the full story? We may never know.

Mew's story is one of gaming's great fables, a blend of mystery, mythology, happenstance, and genuine, ingenious intent. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the greatest discoveries are the ones we stumble upon, not the ones we're actively searching for. And in Pokémon's case, a little bit of mystery went a long way.