Walking Dead: Our World Shut Down — What Location Games Are Left?

Walking Dead: Our World shut down on July 1, 2023. The servers went dark, the app was pulled from stores, and two years of progress for millions of players evaporated overnight. If you’re still searching for what happened and where to go next, you’re not alone — the game had a devoted community that deserved better than a 30-day shutdown notice.

I want to give you a straight answer: what actually killed Our World, which location games have met similar fates, and where the players who loved the walk-and-play format should be looking right now.

What Happened to Walking Dead: Our World

Next Games (the Finnish developer behind Our World) was acquired by Netflix in March 2022 for approximately $72 million. The logic made sense on paper: Netflix wanted mobile gaming capabilities, and Next Games had a proven track record with licensed IP.

What followed is a familiar Silicon Valley story. Netflix’s gaming strategy shifted. The Walking Dead TV show’s ratings had peaked and were declining. The licensed IP deal with AMC had costs. Maintaining server infrastructure for a game that had passed its peak engagement numbers — with declining daily active users and increasing cost-per-retained-player — stopped making financial sense.

On June 1, 2023, the shutdown announcement landed. One month later, it was over.

The actual cause of death: unit economics on licensed IP location games are brutal. You pay for the IP license regardless of player count. You pay for server infrastructure proportional to player count. As the player base declines, the fixed IP costs eat a larger and larger percentage of revenue. Once you’re past the inflection point, the math never works again.

The Location Game Graveyard

Our World wasn’t alone. The location game space has more gravestones than most genres:

• Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (Niantic, 2019-2022) — Shut down January 31, 2022. $10M+ in licensing, couldn’t capture Pokémon GO’s audience. Same developer, same technology, wrong IP at the wrong time.
• Jurassic World Alive — Still technically running but community severely depleted. Ludia’s acquisition by Jam City in 2021 signaled trouble.
• Ghostbusters World (2018-2019) — Lasted barely a year. AR with licensed IP is expensive to build and expensive to maintain.
• The Witcher: Monster Slayer (CD Projekt Red, 2021-2023) — Shut down June 30, 2023. Less than two years of operation.
• Minecraft Earth (Microsoft, 2019-2021) — Shut down June 30, 2021, citing COVID-related challenges with outdoor gameplay.

The pattern is consistent: licensed IP location games fail when the IP’s popularity peaks before the player base is self-sustaining. At that point, the cost structure doesn’t work, the publisher cuts the title, and the community gets 30-60 days notice that their investment is gone.

What Location Games Are Still Running in 2026

Here’s the honest landscape of what’s left — and which titles are worth your time:

Game	Developer	Status	Spoofing Prevention	Longevity Risk	Active Community
Pokémon GO	Niantic	✅ Active	⚠️ Behavioral only	Low (dominant IP)	Very High
Ingress	Niantic	✅ Active	⚠️ Behavioral only	Medium (niche)	Medium
Monster Hunter Now	Niantic + Capcom	✅ Active	⚠️ Behavioral only	Medium (IP-dependent)	High
Pikmin Bloom	Niantic	✅ Active	⚠️ Behavioral only	Medium	Medium
Jurassic World Alive	Ludia/Jam City	⚠️ Declining	❌ Minimal	High	Low-Medium
Tripwire Recon	Edge Orbital	✅ Active (Growing)	✅ Hardware-verified	Low (no IP license)	Growing

Why Tripwire Recon Is Different

I’m Christopher Wolff — the founder of Edge Orbital and the developer behind Tripwire Recon. I’ll be transparent about my obvious bias. But I’ll also give you the actual reasons why this game doesn’t face the shutdown risk that killed Our World.

No IP license costs. Our World paid AMC every month for the Walking Dead license. When player revenue declined, those fixed costs became fatal. Tripwire Recon has no IP license. Our cost structure scales with players, not against them.

We own the infrastructure. Our World ran on Next Games’ server infrastructure. When Netflix made the shutdown call, that infrastructure went with it. Tripwire Recon runs on Edge Orbital’s own Tessera mesh network. The game and the infrastructure are the same company.

The game mechanic resists spoofing. Location games with GPS spoofing problems develop a negative feedback loop: legitimate players leave because cheaters dominate, cheater percentage increases, legitimate players leave faster. Tripwire Recon’s hardware-verified positioning breaks that loop. We built it because I’ve watched that loop destroy other games from the infrastructure side.

Faction warfare creates genuine community. Our World had solid gameplay, but the social structure was thin. Tripwire Recon is built around faction warfare at New Orleans landmarks — the kind of territorial competition that turns players into community members who have a stake in the game’s continued existence. Players who care about their faction’s territory don’t quit quietly.

For the Walking Dead: Our World Community

If you’re a displaced Our World player looking for a game that scratches the same itch — walking your city, discovering anomalies at real landmarks, competing against other players for territory — Tripwire Recon is the closest thing to what you lost, with hardware that Our World never had.

The walk-and-play format is still the most physically rewarding gaming genre that exists. The problem was never the format — it was the economic model built on licensed IP that ages out. That problem is solved when the game owns its own world.

Check out the full list of best location-based games in 2026 for a broader perspective on the genre. If you’re specifically looking for an Ingress alternative with faction mechanics and real-world territorial control, that comparison is worth your time too.

And if you want to try Tripwire Recon for yourself, it’s live on iPhone now. No waitlist, no beta gating.

Learn more about Tripwire Recon →

Download on the App Store →