Harry Potter: Wizards Unite will bring a little magic into the world tomorrow, as fans will be able to step into the world of the Boy Who Lived thanks to the augmented-reality smartphone game.
Players use their phones to tackle something called the Calamity, which has tossed all sorts of dangerous magic – Confoundables – into the everyday world of muggles. Exploring the real world around them, they’ll run into familiar forms for fans of the Potterverse, such as pixies guarding screaming Howler letters or Hogwarts students trapped by vines. Casting spells on them by tracing lines on the phone’s screen will send them back where they belong, adding to the player’s collection of magical objects fished from the streets.
Anybody who ever headed out to hunt critters in Niantic’s previous mega-hit, Pokémon Go, will see the similarities in Wizards Unite. Pokéstops, for instance, become Inns, where you can gather spellcasting energy rather than Pokéballs.
After levelling a few times, players will be asked whether they want to become an Auror, a magical zoologist, or a professor. Each path has its own skills that you can develop as you continue to play. “Some skills are focused on you as an individual, for example improving the way that you explore the map,” says Alex Moffit, a producer at developer Niantic. “But a lot of the skills that I think are most interesting involve collaboration … I can actually cast abilities on my fellow witches and wizards, help heal them, give them a boost.”
Wizards Unite does “some things new, some things old, some things better,” says Moffit. One of these things is the ability to brew potions, which will give you advantages in tough fights. You can find ingredients by walking around, and they will vary based on your location and even the weather conditions, or you can grow them in greenhouses scattered around the world.
Of course, as in Pokémon Go, you can also buy energy, potions, and other things like cosmetics using real money. Spending is never obligatory, but how easy the game is to play will depend on how packed your home neighbourhood is with Inns or other encounters. One journalist at this week’s preview event in LA ran out of spellcasting energy even in the bustling Universal Studios, where Inns and encounters were clustered so that several of each were within reach. However, the game is nowhere near as money-grubbing as last year’s Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery.
You’ll probably need to use potions – brewed or bought – to tackle the game’s tougher challenges. The toughest in the game are fortresses and, like Pokémon Go’s raid battles, you’ll need to group together with other players to attempt them. Some encounters are trickier than others, and may not be possible at all until you’ve levelled up a bit. Sometimes enemies will fight back, and you’ll need to cast Protego or fail. Rarer encounters also drop hints about the plot, which Moffit envisions running “for 10 years”, though at the moment it’s “abstract” and ready to “change, shift and react” based on fan feedback.
Three years after its launch, Pokémon Go maintains a dedicated community of millions. Moffit believes that the Potter fanbase’s “energy and enthusiasm” could mean big things for Wizards Unite. At the preview event at Los Angeles’ Universal Studios, it wasn’t hard to see why. Long before selected press and Potter fans arrived, the park’s Potter-themed street, lined with rides and themed shops from the wizarding universe, was bustling with kids and adults wearing robes, waving wands and taking photographs of Hogwarts.
Players can take a selfie and dress it up with themed filters and stickers, such as a Hogwarts house border or Harry’s iconic glasses and lightning-bolt scar. Fan-favourite characters do make an appearance in the game, though Moffit says there is a “tightrope” balance between bringing in familiar faces and letting players embody themselves as witches and wizards in the world. “You have to be yourself,” he says. “Everybody can’t be Harry, that doesn’t make sense.”
“Fans are huge experts already,” Moffit says. “Everybody already knows how to cast spells. You may not think you’ve ever cast a spell before but you see them and you’re like ‘Oh, I know what this is, I know Incendio, I know Alohamora.’” And when you do run into a recognisable character, “maybe it’s Ron from the Quidditch pitch, mid-dive with some Confoundable around him, it’s pretty cool because it doesn’t happen all that often.”
Though the preview event saw a few crashes, disconnects and long loading screens, it was enjoyable to explore and encounter all manner of familiar magic and mystery. Getting to experience and interact with the wizarding world superimposed over our own will surely be exciting for fans who want to return to Harry’s world. Pokémon Go players will feel the similarities, but may enjoy the added complexity of Wizards Unite – and it’s certainly launching in a better state than Pokémon Go did in 2016.
The app launches in the United Kingdom and the United States on Friday, 21 June, with a staggered roll-out for the rest of the world. It’s downloadable for free.
