The world around you is not what it seems.
Choose Enlightenment.

Yes. Free to download and fully playable free on iOS and Android. There are optional cosmetic and convenience purchases, but nothing you need to compete — your legs and your brain are the real equipment.

Ingress has been running continuously since 2012 — it's the game that invented the genre Pokémon GO made famous. The receipts: an active subreddit of 55,000+ agents, First Saturday meetups drawing 20–40 players per city every month worldwide, and a live global anomaly circuit every year. It's smaller than the giants, and that's precisely why joining matters: veterans agree the difference between a dead area and an active one is two or three players. In Ingress, one new agent visibly changes a city's map. Check the live intel map and see for yourself.

As much as you want. Some agents hack a few portals on their commute; others plan multi-hour field operations on weekends. Fifteen minutes of walking a day is enough to level steadily and contribute to the local score. And the early grind is shorter than veterans remember: with a mentor, double-AP events, and a dense park to microfield, new agents reach Level 8 — where all the gear that matters unlocks — in days, not months.

No. Ingress is walking-pace by design, and plenty of agents play by car, bike, wheelchair, or bus. Portals cluster downtown, so a slow loop through the civic center is a full play session.

We don't really take the game's storyline seriously — it's set dressing, and it's fun. At the end of the day Ingress is an augmented-reality game that gets us out of the house, walking around our own city, and playing together. Come for the glowing triangles, stay for the people.

As competitive as you want it to be. Some agents take it very seriously and play hard to win; plenty of others play casually. There are many ways to play — solo walker, weekend strategist, event-only social player — and we encourage everyone to find their comfort zone. Going hard is cool. So is keeping it chill.

Same real-world map DNA (Ingress came first), but Ingress is more communicative and collaborative — and more competitive. Fields are team efforts, so you actually get to know your teammates, and even your adversaries, to whatever degree you want. There are meetups and in-person events, and the social layer is most of the fun.

The scanner is GPS-heavy — veterans will tell you so themselves. Turn on the in-app Battery Saver Mode and carry a power bank (the one accessory every agent recommends). Data usage is modest — maps and game state, not video.

Use the same judgment you'd use anywhere: play aware, favor daylight and public places, and never trespass — portals are on public art and public spaces. Two privacy habits veterans teach on day one: play under your agent name everywhere (game actions are publicly visible on the map), and don't make a habit of capturing the portal closest to home. Local communities coordinate group play, which is both safer and more fun.

Yes — Niantic offers a one-time faction switch (it unlocks at 40,000 AP), plus another chance if you ever reach Level 16 and recurse. If you're blue and having doubts… the water's warmer over here. 🐸

The opposite. The operation’s patrons fund free-to-enter recognition prizes — weekly objectives, monthly leaderboards, cycle championships. Entry is always free, winners are determined by verified in-game skill, and every prize period publishes written rules. It's the same spirit as the raffles and scoreboards Ingress First Saturday events have run for a decade, with better production values.