WHILE SOME GAMERS are required to put
down their controllers to get back outside,
there’s a flip side to all this: augmented-
reality games, in which a new generation
of smartphone gamers are treating the real
world like a playground. Players use their
camera as a viewfinder, and it overlays com-
puter graphics and information on the set-
tings around you.
The first AR blockbuster arrived in 2016 in
the form of Pokémon Go, which places tiny
animated creatures into natural settings
that players explore in a sort of scavenger
hunt. The novelty of seeing a red-horned,
flame-tailed Charmeleon scurry across your
backyard spawned a global phenomenon, as
phone-wielding humans with outstretched
arms chased imaginary Pokémon into trees,
oceans, and oncoming traffic. The game,
owned by a San Francisco company called
Niantic, cracked the top five in app-store
revenue in 46 countries, bringing in more
than $2 billion since its release.
Such experiences are all part of the plan for
John Hanke, 52, Niantic’s game- developing
founder. An earlier company he owned,
Keyhole, was devoted to scanning the globe;
he sold it to Google as the basis for GoogleEarth. With Niantic, the goal was more per-
sonal: he wanted to get his kids outside. “I
like to wander around to weird and interest-
ing places,” he says. “With young kids, I’m
dragging my family along. The agenda was to
make it more fun and more likely that I could
get my kids to agree.”
With his other popular title, Ingress, the
idea is to appeal to older gamers, getting
them to lean more heavily into the explor-
atory nature of the experience.
On a crisp Sunday afternoon in March, I
head to Valley Forge National Historical Park
in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, to meet
with a dozen avid Ingress players. As with
Pokémon Go, you play it on your phone.
The conceit is the usual sci-fi fare: two
factions—the alien-friendly Enlightened andthe humans fighting against them, called the
Resistance—are vying for control of land-
marks around the world. To play, you have to
visit the designated points of interest—say,
the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bang-
kok, or a snowshoe trail in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Once there, you “capture” a portal for your
faction by triangulating it with the help of
other phone-wielding teammates.
For avid players, Ingress is the best of both
worlds, virtual and real. Michael “Qwerkus”
Gerchufsky, a 50-year-old medical editor
from Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, describes
the appeal as we hike around the towering
National Memorial Arch: “I was like, wait,
there’s a video game that gets me outdoors?”
For nonplayers, the game can seem pretty
geeky—a bunch of adults running around old
cabins and forts, clicking their phones and
yelping about the portals they successfully
wrangle for their teams. But hey, a bunch
of adults whacking little balls with wooden
sticks probably looked pretty odd when golf
first came around.
Ingress players stress both the sociability
and active lifestyle of the game. Elizabeth
Brunt, a software engineer, tells me how she
broke her ankle in a fall and had to do rehab.“I needed to get out of the house,” she says.
“With this I could play a video game but also
get outside. It’s a good reason to keep mov-
ing.” Mike “Baron” Eisenstein, a science
writer, says he regularly plays when he trav-
els—for fun and as a way of meeting people.
“I tried to play on Kilimanjaro,” he says, “but
I had crappy cell service.”
Mary “MysticalGnu” O’Rourke, a man-
ager for Choice Entertainment Technologies
in Boulder, Colorado, is also obsessed. “It
really appeals to people who are adventur-
ous,” she says. “It’s like the old days of glory,
gold, God. You have to establish new territo-
ries. This is taking that aspect and encour-
aging people to reexplore the world in the
context of a game.” She devotes much of her
spare time to exploring the country through100 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.19
critters is one method for helping them re-
engage with the world. In case the gamers
need how-to advice, animal-care binders
line the shelves inside the main building.
Brian, the 22-year-old who used to go by
the handle CTL, sits cross-legged in a cushy
reclining chair, relaxing after a daily group
session. Like most people here, he’s wear-
ing a hoodie that hides his face inside a soft,
shadowy cave. He was addicted to the fight-
ing games Pokémon Showdown and Super
Smash Bros., which he played so much that
he dropped out of school. He’s been here
only two weeks, and he’s still adjusting.
“I’d be flat-out lying if I said I didn’t miss
gaming,” he tells me, staring into space. “I
think almost everyone here would be.”
At ReStart, one goal is to get people mov-
ing. The rehab begins with about a month
of de-teching. This means, among other
things, abstaining from screens for the sake
of getting back in touch with themselves and
the environment. “We’re focused very much
on their health,” Cash says. “Eating well, ex-
ercising, and catching up on sleep. Because
they’re all sleep-deprived.”
De-teching doesn’t cause the same
symptoms of withdrawal suffered by alco-
holics and drug addicts, but there are dis-
tinct challenges. Rae says that when clients
detach from their dependence on reward cy-
cles, their bodies go into some kind of crisis.
Newcomers at ReStart can find themselves
fighting depression, anxiety, and stress.
Brian says that after years of barely eating
and sleeping, just being back on a schedule
has been mind-altering. “You have to get
used to going to bed at the same time and
waking up at the same time,” he says. Nate
describes a kind of lucid dreaming he’s expe-
rienced during his de-teching, in which he’s
able to visualize himself in the game world,
despite the fact that he’s in a bunk bed deep
in the woods.
After the initial phase, patients settle into
a regular regimen of chores, counseling, and
physical fitness. Residents tend to tomatoes,
kale, and other vegetables in a greenhouse.
One of the therapists is a wilderness first
responder who takes the patients out on
trails where they can learn about wildlife
and ecology.
Maura Reagan used to run weekly move-
ment-therapy classes at ReStart, focusing
on rebuilding residents’ mind-body con-
nection and facilitating the flow between
their inner and outer worlds.
“Being able to show that their physical
growth is parallel to their emotional growth
really comes to life tangibly when we take
them into the mountains,” she says. “They
can actually see that they’re engaging in
their bodies again.”
INGRESS PLAYERS STRESS THESOCIABILITY AND ACTIVE LIFESTYLEOF THE GAME. “I NEEDED TO GETOUT OF THE HOUSE,” SAYS ELIZABETHBRUNT, A SOFTWARE ENGINEER. “THISIS A GOOD REASON TO KEEP MOVING.”