Harry Potter: Wizards Unite was announced a few months ago, and even with little to go on, many fans suspected that it would be a similar experience to Pokémon GO . Those suspicions were only given more fuel when the development team outlined the game's features earlier this week. Not only is the basic premise the same, but there are also some mechanics that seem directly pulled from Pokémon GO, particularly gyms and PokéSt

Pokémon GO continues to fulfill the core fantasy of an AR game from the series, but Harry Potter: Wizards Unite has yet to strike a single resonating chord, and if that does not change, it likely won’t be long for this wo

There are certainly times where Pokémon Go might feel a little too simplistic, but at least it’s easy to understand. That’s part of its charm: The ability to pick up the game and jump right in, fully understanding how to play and what to do. This is not the case with Wizards Unite . Upon entering the Adventure Game Story Guide for the first time, the player is barraged with instructions, lore, and story. Half the words they use don’t make any sense, and it gets a bit complicated a few levels into the game **** when even more rules and features are added. Sometimes a little simplicity is a good th

Wizards Unite introduces fortresses to take the place of gyms in Pokémon Go . Gym and raid battles (both of which take place at gym locations) are far from engaging. The player is basically left tapping at the screen until the conclusion of the battle, providing very little interactivity. Wizards Unite reinvents the idea of gyms with the creation of the fortress. Inside, each fortress are opportunities for engaging battles that can be fought alone or with friends. The game actively encourages you to respond with unique gestures when attacking and defending, making the experience much more interesting over

You level up by collecting Bloodpoints (which essentially work as the games XP system). You can then fill out a Bloodweb with them and once you’ve filled out the whole web, it changes to a new one and your character levels

Overall, the pattern of Wizards Unite 's gameplay looks to be borrowing heavily Pokémon GO 's. Players walk around to find collectibles, monitor their resources, and are eventually forced to visit real-world locations to replenish those resources. Then again, most mobile games have some sort of resource system. Even if Wizards Unite handles resources similar to GO, the latter still has very Pokémon -specific features like gyms and legendary battles. Surely Niantic wouldn't give us some Polyjuice Potion version of that, right? Wel

The bulk of Wizards Unite 's gameplay seems to revolve around things called "Foundables." These are defined by the game's official website as "artefacts, creatures, people, and even memories" that are for some reason appearing in the Muggle world, aka our reality. Players are part of a special Ministry Of Magic task force on a mission to track down these Foundables and return them to the Wizarding Wo

Upon entering the game, the player is informed of a calamity occurring in the wizarding world. Important artifacts, creatures, and even wizards are going missing. As well as, reappearing in the non-magic world, threatening to reveal the existence of magic to the muggles. It is the player's job to save the lost items (known as Foundables) and maintain the secret of magic. Adding a story to Wizards Unite not only made it more interesting but also created a reason for people to play the g

Players would soon run out, and then be asked to pay real money to cast the most basic of spells. Quickly, Niantic added a fix to the game that provides more Spell Energy, but it is still something that players need to keep an eye on all the time. This leads to the second issue, which is that it feels absolutely ridiculous having Spell Energy in the first pl

There are even three teams. This seems particularly odd since the Harry Potter franchise has four perfect teams built into its story with the Hogwarts houses. Instead, it seems we're getting Valor, Instinct, and Mystic repeated in the form of three Professions. Wizards Unite players can choose to be Aurors, Magizoologists, or Professors, which totally fit the theme of the aggressive one, the offbeat one, and the smart one. One nice difference is that the three Professions are encouraged to work together, unlike how Pokémon GO emphasizes competition between the te

You can create a private match in both games to just play with your friends but Friday is just better set up for it. You can create a private match entirely or you can buddy up in a party system and be loaded into a lobby with other random people to be set up for a full match. Daylight didn't have this feature for a long time and although they now have a party system, it's still bringing up a lot of bugs and lagging for some peop

Instead, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite presents players and fans of the franchise with an entirely new activity, one we have never heard of in any detail before, which is the search for Foundables... and that is about it. For the unfamiliar, Foundables are items that have been found, as our in-game narrator tells us, being far too proud of a name that sounds as though it were unironically chosen by a five-year-old ch