If you’ve played Pokemon Go, Pikmin Bloom, or any game from Niantic, you’ve used mechanics and data that came from Ingress, the company’s first-ever real-world game. First released when Niantic was part of Google in 2012, Ingress is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a full year’s worth of in-game events.
The anniversary update is highlighted by a massive PvE campaign, which will pit the green Enlightened players against the blue Resistance members over the fate of a third red faction, the first new faction introduced since the game’s launch. If the Enlightened win the event, all players will find out the source of the red team’s energy, but if the Resistance wins, the door to the other side of the portals will remain shut.
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To get more information about Ingress’s 10-year celebration, we spoke to Niantic senior producer Brian Rose, who kicked off the project while Niantic was part of Google, stayed with Google when Niantic separated and became its own entity, and then in 2019 rejoined the Ingress team by accepting the senior producer role for the game with the new Niantic.