← Location games

Why Some Ingress Players Are Looking for Alternatives in 2026

Updated October 2026 · First posted February 14, 2026

Ingress launched in 2012 and invented much of what location games do today: real landmarks as game pieces, two teams, and teamwork across a whole city. It’s still running in 2026. But it has changed hands, and some long-time players are looking at other games.

Want to try VR New Orleans first?

Join the list. It’s free. One email a week.

Thursday list signup

Get the weekend’s games in New Orleans

Thursday list signup

Free. One email a week. Unsubscribe anytime.

Is Ingress still active in 2026?

Yes. When Scopely bought Niantic’s games business in 2025 (Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom and Monster Hunter Now), Ingress wasn’t part of the sale. Niantic’s mapping spin-off, Niantic Spatial, kept it. The app dropped the “Ingress Prime” name for plain “Ingress”, and it was still getting updates in October 2026.

Niantic Spatial shut down its other game, Peridot, on August 31, 2026, and said that decision doesn’t affect Ingress. The company is also putting more of its focus on mapping tools for businesses, and in July 2026 Game Developer reported layoffs and the closing of its New Zealand office.

Why some players are looking around

  • A smaller community. Player numbers aren’t published, but many players say their local activity is quieter than in the mid-2010s.
  • A steep start. New players usually need a local group to learn linking and fields.
  • Questions about the future. Some players worry about funding now that Ingress no longer shares a company with Pokémon GO, and about new portals, since the Wayfarer tool for adding locations went to Scopely.
  • Cheating. Location spoofing still frustrates competitive players in every location game.

What Ingress still does best

No other game makes team play across a whole city feel as big. Linking portals into fields takes planning, timing and people on the ground, and the community events are real. If your local community is active, there’s still nothing quite like it.

5 alternatives for Ingress players

1

Free · iPhone and Android

Pokémon GO

Best for: a much bigger player base

Three teams compete for gyms and raids. There’s less strategy than Ingress, but players are almost everywhere.

2

Free · iPhone and Android

Orna

Best for: progression and guilds

A fantasy RPG on a real map, with kingdoms (guilds) that compete for territory. Best if you want a character to build more than a team plan.

3

Free · iPhone (iOS 26 or later)

Tripwire Recon

Best for: team capture-the-flag in New Orleans

Four factions capture flags at real places in New Orleans, with clans, chat and leaderboards. It came out in March 2026 and is much smaller than Ingress. Like other location games, it checks how accurate and recent your location is and how fast you’d have had to travel, which makes cheating harder, not impossible.

Disclosure: Tripwire Recon is made by Edge Orbital, the company behind Krewe of Play.

Tripwire Recon on the App Store →

4

Free, Premium about $40 a year in the US · iPhone, Android, web

Geocaching

Best for: the pull of going somewhere real

No teams or fields, but the same reason to go out and explore. More than 3.45 million caches are hidden around the world.

5

Free · iPhone and Android

Zombies, Run!

Best for: if you miss the walking most

An audio story that turns runs and walks into missions. No map strategy, but plenty of reasons to keep moving.

Should you leave Ingress?

If your local community has gone quiet, try one of these for a week, or find people to play with in person. In New Orleans, Krewe of Play’s weekly email lists the games happening that weekend.

Related reading

Sources (checked October 18, 2026)

Going alone?

Players find a crew in our Facebook group.

Join the Facebook group

Krewe of Play players are 18+, kind, and go at walking pace. Games are about places and objects, never strangers. Respect residents, businesses and private property.