It’s been almost a year since Niantic announced it was rebooting its classic MMOARG Ingress as Ingress Prime, and today, it’s finally here.
As we’ve previously noted, Niantic, whom most of you know from Pokemon Go, launched Ingress in 2012 as by far the biggest player in the alternate reality mobile MMO genre at the time, pitting gamers against each other in a massive cyber war overlaid on the real one. The reboot is supposed to boast retooled graphics and an improved UI as it moves to POGO’s more modern tech platform to make the game more appealing to newbies and also crack down on cheating. (The first thing my husband saw when logged in today in chat was a comment that said, “So it’s basically Ingress Prime is just pretty graphics?” It appears so! And… it needed it. The game was built for 2012 phones, after all.) Critically, Niantic vowed this version of the game will be “fully staffed,” which hasn’t really been the case in Ingress traditionally.
Worth noting is that it appears existing players are keeping their old accounts and ranks, so don’t panic there (not that it’s stopping the one-star reviews on Google Play so far). The company has pumped out a ton of new videos and revamped the website, which had been running a pre-ARG until today. Enjoy!
