What is a territory game?

A location-based game where the point is holding ground rather than collecting things. You capture a real-world place, it is yours until somebody takes it, and the map shows who currently holds what.

What is the difference between a territory game and Pokémon GO?

In a catching game your collection is permanent — what you catch stays caught. In a territory game the thing you own can be taken off you, which is what creates the tension. Gyms are the closest Pokémon GO comes to it.

How do you claim territory in a location-based game?

You physically go to the place and claim it in the app — the one rule the whole genre shares, including where you would not expect it: Atlas Earth lets you browse the map from anywhere, but its help centre says buying a parcel still requires being at it. What you claim differs. Ingress turns public artwork and landmarks into Portals, Turf uses zones placed in cities, communities and nature, Atlas Earth sells uniform parcels, and BloodRivals uses the buildings around you.

How do you defend territory you have claimed?

A claim you never return to is the easiest kind to lose — in BloodRivals an undefended house can simply be walked up to and taken. Stationing fighters forces an attacker to send their own instead, turning a stroll past into a fight they can lose. Nothing makes a holding permanent, deliberately: territory you cannot lose is just a collection.

Can you play a territory game solo?

In BloodRivals yes — an address is worth holding by itself. Ingress is different: a portal alone is worth little, and the big plays need coordination with other people.

Do you keep territory forever?

Not in any game worth playing. In BloodRivals an address stays yours until another player takes it — walked up to if you left it undefended, attacked with fighters if you garrisoned it. In Turf, scores reset when the monthly round ends.

The mechanic

Territory games: claiming real ground

A territory game asks one question the rest of the genre doesn't: can you hold it? Catching something is yours forever. Ground isn't — somebody can take it back, and that is the entire point.

What "claiming" actually means

In most of these games a claim is a place on a real map — a corner, a shop, a building — that you have to stand at to take. That physical constraint is what makes it a territory game rather than a strategy game with a map skin: you cannot take your rival's ground from the sofa without committing fighters to it, and neither can they.

Networks versus property

Network games — Ingress is the long-running example — treat a claim as a point to connect. Value comes from the shapes you build between points, which rewards coordination and planning across a whole city, and rewards it socially: you need other people, in a group chat, at specific times.

Property games treat a claim as something you develop. It has a level, it produces income, and it is worth more the longer you invest in it. Value accrues while you sleep, which means the pressure is different — you are not planning an operation, you are worrying about what you left undefended.

What counts as one claim

Underneath that, each game has to decide what the smallest claimable thing is. There are four answers in use, and the choice settles something the marketing never mentions: whether there is anything to claim where you actually live.

Points of interest. Ingress builds on a fixed list of landmarks — in its own words, every public artwork and point of interest becomes a Portal. Rich in a city centre with statues and plaques. Thin in a suburb, and thin permanently, because the list is the map.
Placed zones. Turf uses virtual zones placed in cities, communities and nature. Someone decided where they go, which means coverage is excellent where the game has been played for years and sparse where it hasn't.
A uniform grid. Atlas Earth sells virtual land 900 square feet at a time, each parcel paying rent per second. The grid is uniform rather than curated, though it runs in only about twenty countries — and parcels are bought rather than contested, so nobody can take yours.
Real buildings. The approach we took: the claimable unit is the building you are standing at, read from OpenStreetMap. Coverage follows wherever people have mapped, which is most inhabited places, and the unit is something you can point at from the pavement.

The failure mode: an empty board

Territory games live or die on density. A claiming mechanic with nobody to claim against is a to-do list on a map: you take everything nearby, nothing contests it, and there is no reason to open the app again. Several are still installable and effectively empty, which is worse than not existing — you find out an hour in.

So the useful question when you are picking one is not "how good are the mechanics" but "is anyone playing it near me?" A game with simpler rules and real rivals beats a deeper one with none.

Where BloodRivals sits

BloodRivals is a property game. You claim real addresses, build them up, they earn while you hold them, and other players can take them off you — closer to running an estate than to building a network.

There are no bots to farm — every rival on the map is a person. That is the honest trade for being smaller than the giants: a tighter board, with nothing on it that isn't a player.

The board, right now

Since density is the whole question, here are our live numbers rather than a claim about them: 123 registered players holding 23,664 properties. (as published 2026-09-13 — the app shows the live count)

Who it isn't for

We are dense in Norway and thin elsewhere — outside those cities you would be starting a board rather than joining one. If you want network-building and city-wide coordinated operations instead, Ingress does that better.

Common questions

What is a territory game?: A location-based game where the point is holding ground rather than collecting things. You capture a real-world place, it is yours until somebody takes it, and the map shows who currently holds what.
What is the difference between a territory game and Pokémon GO?: In a catching game your collection is permanent — what you catch stays caught. In a territory game the thing you own can be taken off you, which is what creates the tension. Gyms are the closest Pokémon GO comes to it.
How do you claim territory in a location-based game?: You physically go to the place and claim it in the app — the one rule the whole genre shares, including where you would not expect it: Atlas Earth lets you browse the map from anywhere, but its help centre says buying a parcel still requires being at it. What you claim differs. Ingress turns public artwork and landmarks into Portals, Turf uses zones placed in cities, communities and nature, Atlas Earth sells uniform parcels, and BloodRivals uses the buildings around you.
How do you defend territory you have claimed?: A claim you never return to is the easiest kind to lose — in BloodRivals an undefended house can simply be walked up to and taken. Stationing fighters forces an attacker to send their own instead, turning a stroll past into a fight they can lose. Nothing makes a holding permanent, deliberately: territory you cannot lose is just a collection.
Can you play a territory game solo?: In BloodRivals yes — an address is worth holding by itself. Ingress is different: a portal alone is worth little, and the big plays need coordination with other people.
Do you keep territory forever?: Not in any game worth playing. In BloodRivals an address stays yours until another player takes it — walked up to if you left it undefended, attacked with fighters if you garrisoned it. In Turf, scores reset when the monthly round ends.

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