How To Get Unown In Pokemon GO: Rare But Not Quite Legendary

Today we're going to talk about the rarest of the rare Pokemon in the game Pokemon GO for Gen 2 and beyond. These are the Unown, the letters of the game. This game – like previous Pokemon games – have 26+ Pokemon in the "Unown" category, each assigned to their own letter or character. Some of the Unown are not yet released into the game, but the vast majority are available to be found and caught in the wild already.

It's been discovered by hardcore Pokemon GO users that the Unown Medal is only uncovered once one Unown is caught. Most users that've played every day since the first day of Gen 2 have not yet seen a single Unown. Once the first is caught, the Unown Medal appears and – at first – looks like it'll be nearly impossible to accomplish.

While some medals require that 100 of a single rare Pokemon be caught, this one is different. Because Unown is a single Pokemon with a limited set of variations, this medal requires that all 26 (of the first set) be caught to get the gold. The three levels for the medal are find 3, find 10, find 26.

The "Badge Type" for this Medal is listed in the game's code as "38" – which is very strange. All other badges (read: medals) are listed as "BADGE_TYPE_WATER" or "BADGE_BIG_MAGIKARP" – essentially the same as their title. Badge 38 only appearing when the first of this type of Pokemon are caught may be an indicator of more "secret" Medals appearing in the future.

In our ongoing exploration of the most recent build of the Pokemon GO game APK, we've discovered Unown listed with the letter "F" first – and we're not sure why. From there, the letters are assigned to different bundle values. Unown is listed in this game different from any other Pokemon.

The first Unown is listed as the letter F, asset bundle value 16. Then asset bundle values 11-36 are A-Z, 37 is Question Mark, and 38 is Exclamation Point. At this time it does not appear that any letter is any more or less rare than any other. All Unown are listed under the same Unown base monster, so it's likely that each Unown is spawned with two rolls of a die – one for spawning of an Unown, and another for a letter.

The good news is that once an Unown is encountered, it's not particularly difficult to capture. It has a base capture rate of 0.3, roughly that of most Uncommon Pokemon, like Clefairy, Vulpix, Gloom, Growlithe, Scyther, and Jynx (and others). Be sure to use a Razz Berry when you see it, of course, and an Ultra Ball – or whatever other advanced Pokeball you have to give you the best chance at capture.

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We cannot know exactly how rare any one Unown Pokemon is at this time, but it's likely this monster is extremely rare. It could be that this Pokemon might be made more common during a special event in the future.

The fact that the Medal (the badge) indicates 26 Unown Pokemon need to be found to get Gold suggests that not all Unown listed in the code are available at this time. It would follow that the "!" and the "?" would be the two to be kept unavailable at first, while the 26 stick to the alphabet.

Another bit of good news – it does not appear that any version of Unown is region-locked. Unown have been found in several different countries so far, and in no one specific sort of biome. They could be anywhere, at any time. If we can – at any point – be more specific, we'll be updating this article to make it more clear! In the meantime, hit up @TeamPokemonGO, our Twitter portal for Pokemon GO – to stay caught up!