The Harry Potter Wizards Unite beta has finally opened up for registration. That’s fantastic news, but there’s a bit of a downside in the announcement was well – the game’s release has been delayed.
Harry Potter Wizards Unite is an AR game by Pokémon GO and Ingress developer Niantic. Just like these other intellectual properties adapted to AR, the Harry Potter universe lends itself well to a game that gets you out and about in the real world. The backstory states that traces of magic are appearing in the Muggle world and it’s up to a batch of clever wizards to contain them before the secrecy that keeps the wizarding world safe is breached.
Beyond that initial premise, we don’t quite yet know what the game will entail. We can take cues from Niantic’s other works and assume that we’ll probably have to head to certain places in the real world. The developer has used their Ingress portal geolocation data as the basis for Pokémon GO’s Poké Stops and gyms. It seems likely that they’ll be continuing the practice. Unfortunately, this may mean that players living in an area without many of these portals might have a tough time playing the game.
Players are now able to sign up for the Harry Potter Wizards Unite beta. Simply head over to the game’s official website and click the big red “Enlist Now!” button. You’ll be asked to enter your e-mail address. At the moment, the site’s stability is understandably a bit shaky; it may take a while to connect, much less get a confirmation e-mail from Niantic.
Aside from this most excellent news of the Harry Potter Wizards Unite beta, we’ve also learned that the game has been delayed beyond its implied release date of sometime in 2018. While no official release date had been announced, players assumed that it would be coming sometime in 2018. A Reddit AMA with Niantic’s VP of Marketing and Live Events Bill Kildav had him indicate that it was “Coming Soon”. However, the very end of today’s Harry Potter Wizards Unite beta announced the release window as 2019.
It looks like the wizarding world fans in your household will have to have a bit of patience. In the meantime, you may as well sign up for the beta. You can also subscribe to the game’s YouTube channel and follow them on Twitter.
