The power of Ingress agents is strong. But until we understand our enemy, we will always be on the run. It is time to uncover the origins of Nemesis and decipher their plans. Umbra holds the second barrier: will you be able to defeat them and help save the researchers?
In the Nemesis: Umbra Ingress Anomalies, Agents will be striving to defeat the Nemesis villain named Umbra. Umbra holds one of the key pieces that is keeping the Niantic researchers trapped, and is attempting to take permanent hold in our dimension. In the fight against Umbra, both Factions are trying to gain crucial information that could give them a Key Advantage in the final battle against Nemesis. The strongest Faction will reap the greatest rewards and be given first selection of advantages from the NIA.
During a three-hour period in each city (2:30PM to 5:30PM local time), an Anomaly Zone will form around certain XM Portals. These Portals will be visibly ornamented in the scanner. Ingress Agents will be competing in four challenges:
Umbra is trying to gain hold via neutral portals in the Anomaly Zone; agents must capture and keep them. Capturing and holding these portals for your Faction will keep Umbra's barrier vulnerable.
Agents must make a long path of links starting from one of their Faction's Base Portals. Long link paths can destabilize Umbra’s barrier, and get us one step closer to re-establishing the connection between the Niantic Project Researchers and our world.
Agents must hack as many different portals in the Anomaly Zone as they can. Hacking the portals casts the net to capture Umbra.
Umbra's true name is hidden behind layers of shadow and mystery. While the anomaly battle will prevent her plans from coming to fruition, in order to truly defeat her, the agents must uncover her true identity. Agents must decode enciphered passcodes and enter them into the scanner in order to identify information about Umbra.
During the Anomaly Period, Anomaly Zone Portals will be ornamented in the scanner as follows:
![]() | Volatile Portal (Capture Battle) |
![]() | Enlightened Base Portal (Longest Link Path) |
![]() | Resistance Base Portal (Longest Link Path) |
![]() | Other Anomaly Zone Portal |
Individual city Anomaly Zone maps:
The Faction which claims the most scoring points is the victor for that site.
The Faction winning more cities in the Umbra series of Ingress Anomalies will gain first choice of an Umbra Key Advantage, usable in the Nemesis Sequence Finale in 2020 (the other faction will get second choice).
Details: Agents are competing to capture Anomaly Zone portals. Some portals (approximately 10% of the Anomaly Zone portals) will be marked as volatile, and be worth additional points in the Capture Battle. Which portals are volatile will change during each measurement period.
Measurements: There will be nine Capture Battle measurements, at the end of each 20 minute period during the entire Anomaly Period (i.e., at 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes, 80 minutes, 100 minutes, 120 minutes, 140 minutes, 160 minutes, and 180 minutes after the start). Measurements have a measurement window of 2 minutes (records may be taken up to 1 minute before or after the measurement time).
Site Scoring:
Details: Agents are competing to create the longest continuous path of up to 8 links from one of their Faction's Base Portals. Each Faction will have several Portals marked as Base Portals in the Anomaly Zone. Base Portals will change during each measurement. A Link Path must start from a Base Portal, must continue to other Anomaly Zone Portals, and cannot loop. Links to Portals already included in the path and links to offlimit Portals or Portals outside the Anomaly Zone will not continue the path.
Measurements: There will be nine Longest Link Path measurements, at the end of each 20 minute period during the entire Anomaly Period (i.e., at 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes, 80 minutes, 100 minutes, 120 minutes, 140 minutes, 160 minutes, and 180 minutes after the start). Measurements have a measurement window of 2 minutes (records may be taken up to 1 minute before or after the measurement time).
Site Scoring:
The first link in a Link Path is counted as its length in km, and additional links are increasingly multiplied: the second link in a path is worth 2x the length in km; third is 3x, and so on up to 8x. A single Link Path's score is this total weighted score (1x first link length + 2x second link length + 3x third link length + 4x fourth link length + 5x fifth link length + 6x sixth link length + 7x seventh link length + 8x eighth link length). A Faction's raw score at a measurement is the total weighted score of their single highest-scoring Link Path starting from any of their Base Portals.
In other words, the link originating from the Base Portal will have its link distance measured in kilometers. Each additional link will have a higher multiplier applied to its length. If a Link Path is comprised of three links with the distances of 100km, 25km, and 50km, the score for the Link Path would be (100x1)+(25x2)+(50x3) = 300 points.
Details: During the three-hour Anomaly Period, each registered Onsite Agent will have the number of unique Anomaly Zone Portals they hacked counted. Any Portal with an Ornament is valid for the Unique Portal Hacks competition. Only hacks during the Anomaly Period will be counted. A Portal hack does not need to count towards an Agent's Explorer Badge in order to count for the Unique Portal Hacks competition.
Measurements: There will be one measurement, at the end of the Anomaly Period. This measurement has a measurement window of 2 minutes (records may be taken up to 1 minute before or after the measurement time). Each Agent's hacks over the Anomaly Period will then be counted and the Faction’s score computed. Only registered Onsite Agents will be counted towards the final score.
Site Scoring: The final raw score for each Faction will be the average from all of its Agents, after removing any with fewer than thirteen Portal hacks and then removing the highest and lowest 15% of Agent scores. The Faction with the higher final raw score will win the entire competition, gaining the full 15 scoring points.
Details: At the beginning of the three-hour Anomaly Period, each registered Onsite and Offsite Agent for that city will be sent an email with links to a number of miniciphers specific to their city. Each of these miniciphers is an encoded message which can be deciphered to a passcode (one use per agent, resulting in a media object). When a registered Agent for that city (either Onsite or Offsite) enters one of these passcodes, it will be counted for their Faction. Once a Faction has entered enough minicipher passcodes to reach the Critical Level for their city (at least 75% of the miniciphers for their city), their Faction members will receive an email with the Master Code for their site. When deciphered, this will also result in a passcode. Emails will be sent from "Niantic <niantic@info.ingress.com>".
Measurements: Faction progress on the minicodes will be checked every five minutes during the Anomaly Period (with a two minute measurement window, up to one minute before or after). If a Faction has reached the Critical Level, they will be emailed the Master Code at that time.
Site Scoring: The Faction which first reaches the Critical Level and enters the Master Code solution will win the entire competition, gaining the full 10 scoring points.
During the two hours before the start of the Anomaly Period (12:30PM to 2:30PM local time), Anomaly Zone Portals may be spontaneously neutralized. This is likely to happen multiple times leading up to the start of the Anomaly Period. This will not affect inoculation times.
During the Anomaly Period, fields and links using Portals outside the Anomaly Zone and crossing into the Anomaly Zone may spontaneously de-materialize when detected. This includes fields which cover a large part of the Anomaly Zone, even if they do not cover the entire Anomaly Zone.