The comparison
Ingress alternatives, honestly
Ingress — branded Ingress Prime from 2018 to 2025 — is the benchmark for this genre and has been for over a decade. If you're looking past it, it's usually for one of two reasons: the coordination has become work, or you'd rather not play a Niantic game.
You know this genre better than most people who will read anything on this site, so here is the trade stated plainly enough to argue with.
Coordination versus ownership
The good part of Ingress is geometry between people. A portal on its own is nearly worthless; value comes from links and fields, which means value comes from planning with others. Nothing else in the genre has matched that, and we are not about to pretend we do.
BloodRivals is ownership. An address is worth something by itself: you claim it, build it up through its levels, and it generates income for as long as you hold it. There is no link, no field, no op. The strategy is what you can afford and what you can be present to defend.
If organising ops is the part you love, you will find us shallow. That is a real limitation and not one we intend to fix — a game where a single address is worth holding is a different game from one where the map is a canvas.
The honest comparison
Swipe the table sideways to see BloodRivals →
| Ingress | BloodRivals | |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of play | Portal, link, field | A single address |
| Where value comes from | Geometry between portals | Income from what you hold |
| Need other people? | For anything ambitious, yes | No — solo works |
| Learning curve | Steep, heavy jargon | Claim, build, hold |
| Factions | Two, global | Teams, no global sides |
| Publisher | Niantic | CreatorsJourney AS, Norway |
| Population | Global, veteran-heavy | Small, mostly Norway |
The board, right now
You will want the population number rather than an adjective. The board currently has 123 registered players holding 23,664 properties. (as published 2026-09-13 — the app shows the live count)
The other territory options
Turf is the closest thing to Ingress's capture loop without the link geometry — Nordic, ad-free, and running since 2010. If you want zone capture with a monthly reset rather than a permanent map, start there rather than here.
Three more worth knowing about, with the date each last shipped a build, because a store listing outlives the work on it and nobody else prints this. Checked 16 August 2026:
- Orna — a GPS RPG where territory is one system among many, so the walking is optional in a way it is not here. Last shipped 29 July 2026.
- Turf Wars — no relation to Turf above, despite the name; different publisher, different country. The one most Ingress players have never heard of, and it predates all of this: on the App Store since 2009, claiming and defending real places from other mobsters. Last shipped 1 May 2026.
- Run An Empire — territory for runners, and the reason this list carries dates at all: last shipped 25 July 2023. It has announced nothing and a long gap is not proof of anything — software can be finished — but three years is worth knowing before you invest weeks, and the store page does not surface it.
Common questions
- How is BloodRivals different from Ingress?
- Ingress is built on coordination — portals get linked into control fields, and the big plays are organised between people. BloodRivals is built on ownership: you claim an individual address, it earns income while you hold it, and another player can take it. There are no links, fields or faction ops.
- Is there a faction system?
- There are teams, and teams have colours and names, but there is no two-sided global faction war. Ownership is per-player and per-address.
- Is BloodRivals easier to get into than Ingress?
- Yes, deliberately. The whole loop is claim an address, build it up, hold it. There is no equivalent of Ingress's jargon, inventory management or link geometry — which also means there is less depth for a veteran to chew on.
- Is it made by Niantic?
- No. BloodRivals is made by CreatorsJourney AS, an independent studio in Norway, and has no affiliation with Niantic, Scopely or Ingress.
- Does it drain battery like Ingress?
- It uses GPS, so it uses battery — any game in this genre does. We make no claim to be better at it than a game that has been optimising for over a decade.
Free on iOS and Android. No ads. Optional in-app purchases.
More comparisons
- Location-based gamesThe genre, and what is still active in it
- Property gamesBoard, idle and location — three kinds that play nothing alike
- Territory gamesHow claiming and holding real ground works
- GPS gamesBattery, rural coverage and how much walking is really needed
- Pokémon GO alternativesFor catching-game players wanting stakes
- Turf alternativesGPS capture without the monthly reset
- Atlas Earth alternativesVirtual land other people can take
- Landlord GO alternativesProperty games you have to walk to
- Orna alternativesGPS games with real-world stakes
- Geocaching alternativesWhen you want the ground to be at stake
- GPS running gamesTerritory capture without a pace requirement
- Walking gamesA reason to go out — without a step counter
- Mafia gamesCrime empires from the sofa vs turf you walk to
- Games that shut downMinecraft Earth, Wizards Unite and more — and what's left
Pokémon GO, Ingress, Niantic, Scopely, Turf, Andrimon, Atlas Earth, Landlord GO, Get Rent, Reality Games, Monopoly GO!, Monster Hunter Now, Pikmin Bloom, Jurassic World Alive, Orna, Northern Forge, Geocaching, Adventure Lab®, Groundspeak, Munzee, RunStrict, Claim of Zones, Capture, KYRO, Movements Lab, Territory Run, Minecraft Earth, Mojang, Microsoft, Catan, Nerd Ninjas, Ghostbusters, Sony Pictures, FourThirtyThree, The Walking Dead, AMC, Next Games, Draconius GO, Harry Potter, Wizards Unite, WB Games, The Witcher, Spokko, CD Projekt, Maguss, Parallel Kingdom, Run An Empire, Location Games Limited, Father.io, Proxy42, Mafia City, YottaGames, Mob Wars: LCN, Underworld Empire, The Grand Mafia, Turf Wars and MeanFreePath are trademarks of their respective owners. Named across this site only to compare them; no affiliation or endorsement is implied, and nothing on this site is a statement about their earnings, payouts or business practices.