Harry Potter WU

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite

HPWU logoPublisher – Niantic, Portkey Games, Warner Bros. Games San Francisco
Platform – Android, iOS
Release Date – June 20, 2019

Longevity – D-
Studio Confidence – F
In-game Performance – C-
Fun/enjoyment – C+
True to IP – A
Game Crashing/Reliability – D-
New/Fresh Content – B
FTP Friendly – A+
Customer Service/Support – D
Downloads & Growth – F
Community Engagement/Feedback – C
COVID Response – B+

Overall Rating – D

Gaming-fans.com Notes – Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is a game that I had plans to start playing from the moment I knew it was in the works. As a late-comer to the Wizarding World, I was able to share the magic of the Harry Potter books with my family for the first time while I was in my late 30s and was hooked immediately. Knowing that a mobile game could enhance this fandom was an immediate draw.

However, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite was never able to get off the ground in any way that resembled even a portion of Pokemon Go!, the studio’s hit game, and really became more and more predictable, grind-focused, less fun and unreliable. Niantic and their team were unable to create a game that worked as intended consistently and while I quite the game in October after writing about rumors of HPWU closing down, that proved to be true when they made an official announcement.

One of my biggest problems with the game was the time-sink crash pattern that continued to plague the game, and is worse now that the studio has announced the game will be allowed to die. Many times when fighting Adversaries the game would crash after 5+ minute battles when that character was needed for a specific task. A time-sink game is one thing, but when that time-sink/grind does not reward the player for their efforts by working properly, there is little reason to continue. While my wife continues to play almost daily, this issue has gotten even worse and it has shaped my overall opinion of the studio and all involved.

– LJ, Director of Content, Gaming-fans.com, December 2021

 

Harry Potter Wizards Unite was, according to Wikipedia in early 2019, “Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is an upcoming free-to-play, location-based augmented reality game inspired by the Wizarding World. The game is being developed by WB Games San Francisco and Niantic, and published by Niantic.” The staff at Gaming-fans.com announced our intentions of covering HPWU and we are pleased to have current staff writers already contributing.