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Here Are the Secrets Hidden in POKEMON GO’s Code

Where the heck is my Mewtwo and why do I have a million Pidgeys? If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a veritable avian army, but you’re still itching to find some of the Legendary Pokémon the Pokémon Go trailer teased late last year. We’re talking Articuno. We’re talking Zapdos. We’re talkin’ Moltres. And we are definitely my personal favorite, the genetically-engineered naked mole rat known as Mewtwo! So where the heck are they?

We assumed they’d be coming soon based on the trailer, but so far no one has found them. However, some enterprising redditors and YouTubers have taken it upon themselves to unpack the game’s source code, and have found hints of both Legendary Pokémon and… corporate team-ups for gyms and Pokéstops! The source code revealed that Ditto and five Legendary Pokémon are indeed in the game, so why have they yet to be seen?

It might be crazy conjecture, but what if the Legendaries were only accessible behind a paywall? Five bucks for access to a rare, three bucks for a higher level Poké Ball? That could be a definite way to make money and keep fans around, which brings us to another question: how exactly is Nintendo going to make money on this free-to-play ad-free game?

While twenty Poké Balls for a dollar won’t exactly make it rain, some future partnerships definitely will. Enterprising redditors digging deep intothe source code revealed a possible future partnership with McDonald’s! This probably means ol’ Mickey D’s shelled out the big bucks to turn some select locations into Pokéstops and gyms, which should bring more business to the restaurant. But with big cities rife with Pokéstops and gyms, will that be enough of a promo to drive foot traffic to the home of the Big Mac?

One theory is that Niantic’s partnership with McDonald’s and the lack of Legendaries might mean they’re waiting to release the rarest Pokémon in a Happy Meal near you. That’s right, what if they’re waiting to release the most Legendary pokémon as a part of their partnerships? A Mewtwo in my McFlurry might be the exact thing to bring this vegetarian back to McDonald’s for the first time in years…

But what do you guys think? Are the Legendaries out there, hiding from our watchful eyes? Will they wait for another update to show up? Or are we about to see a Moltres Spicy Double McChicken Sandwich? Let’s discuss!

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