Ingress Prime Released

Out of the blue Ingress Prime has gone from closed beta to released (open beta). Agents with the Classic scanner were upgraded to Ingress Prime rather than having to download the Prime beta separately from the Classic scanner. This could have been done because it’ll hit a larger target audience rather than asking agents to download the Prime beta separately.  Let’s dive into some of the highlights of today’s release.

Scanner [REDACTED]

Niantic will be releasing what is being called “Scanner [REDACTED]” tomorrow for Android and later this week for iOS. “Scanner [REDACTED]” is the Classic scanner/Ingress v1.0 and will be usable until sometime in 2019.

More details on Scanner [REDACTED] here.

No Root For You

Ingress built its backbone on nerds and many of the nerds use rooted/jailbroken devices. It may be the unpopular opinion and I know it won’t cut down on everyone trying to spoof, but I like to think lack of root will stop easy access to tools that ruin the game. Many are up in arms over this as their primary devices are rooted and they now can’t play without circumventing root checks and putting their accounts at risk of suspension or a full ban.

Recursion

Though we were not supposed to receive any new features while parity is being worked on, we did recieve a small one. Kind of like a prestige system in other games, L16 agents will be able to “recurse”, setting them back to L1!

Aside from being reset to L1, you will also get the choice to pick your faction again. It is also important to note that this isn’t true L1 status. You keep the recharge distance of an L16, keep your inventory, and keep access to Portal Recon and the Mission Creator Tool. More details about Recurse in our Ingress Guide.

Hackable items added to the In-Game Store

This comes as the most disappointing news of the Prime release. The first time Niantic teased at putting hackable items in the in-game store, John Hanke quickly shut down the “spread[ing] of disinformation” (which was actuality a screw up with the Ingress Report using “mock” photos for production).

Turns out, they were not mock photos after all. New agents are wondering why this is such an issue, after all Pokemon GO sells items obtained from PokeStops, whats the issue here? More than anything, it’s the promise from the CEO of Niantic that hackable items like these would never make their way into the in-game store. The backlash from this will be massive and we’re already seeing many proclaim that they are done playing Ingress because of this.

There is some hope this is a limited time offering and hackable items won’t return to the store. Even so, the feelings are still mixed.

Update (11/6/18)

Niantic addressed some issues with this concern.

Conclusion

There are many issues with Prime, most noteworthy not being able to play in low service areas, slow game pacing, and major battery consumption. We will have to wait and see how Prime feels and plays after parity and optimization are reached. I end the day with very mixed feelings on this release and hope my cynical side doesn’t hold the true crystal ball for the future of Ingress. Happy hacking.