Harry Potter Wizards Unite | TD Gaming

As a Potterhead from way back, I am always on the look out for Harry Potter related content. When Harry Potter: Wizards Unite dropped, I was ecstatic. I had spent the past couple of years playing Pokemon Go with friends and family, so I was already intimately familiar with the basic format of the game: walk around town, visit landmarks, collect themed items/characters, nerd it up with people you know and meet new nerds on your journeys.

I grew up a casual Pokemon fan, and I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting to enjoy Pokemon Go as much as I did. Niantic did a fantastic job of designing a game that engaged its players, whether or not they were super fans. When it was announced that they would be producing a similar app for Harry Potter, I immediately got on the waiting list. There was no way I was going to miss out on a minute of game play.

The minute I opened up Wizards Unite for the first time, it was obvious that Niantic had done their homework. From the opening sequence my inner 8 year old was screaming with joy. The feeling of being transported back into the Wizarding World after so long without a new book or movie was so exciting. I immediately set off into the neighborhood to see what all the app had to offer.

The general game play was extremely similar to Pokemon Go, which I appreciated. There wasn’t a ton of new things to learn, which meant that I could immerse myself into the app quickly with a fair amount of success. Your goal is ultimately the same: collect themed items/characters/creatures to complete a set. Here’s where Wizards Unite did that concept better.

In Wizards Unite there is an almost endless need for all of the Foundables that appear on the map. Once you have collected enough of the fragments of an object, you place the image of the magical item/character/creature into your registry. Once you’ve placed all of the images of a collection into your registry, you can prestige that page. This means you are able to start the page over and collect those Foundables again for a higher amount of Wizard XP. In Pokemon Go, I found myself avoiding all the Pidgeys and Wheedles because they were no longer useful to me. Niantic found a way to turn those more commonly found magical items into consistently relevant pieces of the game by offering the prestige option.

Wizards Unite has also found a way to pivot during the COVID-19 crisis in a way that allows its players to remain active, yet also practice social distancing. They introduced the Knight Bus, which allows players to travel to a Wizarding Fortress (think Pokemon Gym) to complete collaboratively with fellow players from around the world. Normally you would have to travel to a designated Fortress and play while at that physical location. The Knight Bus allows me to travel to a Fortress to play without leaving my couch.

The Fortress brings an exciting collaborative piece to the game that Pokemon Go sorely lacked. Yes, you could go battle in gyms and attempt to conquer them on behalf of your team. However, you weren’t necessarily working with people unless they were a part of your team. In Wizards Unite, you combine the strategy of battling with the collective goal of defeating the Fortress villians without the partisanship. I am a proud Hufflepuff, and when I enter the Fortress I am battling with members of all four houses to defeat common enemies. It truly feels like those scenes at the Battle of Hogwarts when the school united to fight back Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

I was able to attend a live Wizards Unite event in Indianapolis, Indiana last summer. This event allowed me early access into the event that was going to be dropping in the app in a few days. I played Wizards Unite for almost 7 hours straight that day, surrounded by fellow Harry Potter fans from all over the country. I was able to add new friends into the app that I still interact with almost a year later. Harry Potter fans are part of a unique community that Wizards Unite has brought even closer together through this app and the live events it has hosted. I am just as engaged and excited about playing it today as I was when I downloaded it.

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