Harry Potter: Wizards Unite to be taken offline in January

Pokemon Go developer Niantic has announced mobile augmented reality game Harry Potter: Wizards Unite will be taken offline in January.

The company said it will remove the game from app stores on December 6. On this day, in-game purchases will also no longer be available. Niantic will then shut the servers down on January 31, 2022.

"We launched Harry Potter: Wizards Unite more than two years ago, bringing together a community of witches and wizards from all over the globe in an epic quest to put an end to the Calamity and keep the wizarding world safe," reads the notice on Niantic's website.

"In the coming months, we’ll be concluding the story and closing the game on January 31. Not all games are meant to last forever. Our goal with Harry Potter: Wizards Unite was to bring the magic of the wizarding world to life for millions of players as they stepped outside and explored their neighborhoods. We accomplished that together, delivering a two-year narrative story arc that will soon be complete."

Niantic shutting the game down may seem strange considering it seemed to be a popular game. Sure it's not the juggernaut Niantic's Pokemon Go is, what with its $5.5 billion in player spending worldwide to date, but Harry Potter: Wizards Unite numbers don't seem too slouchy from an outsiders perspective.

According to Sensor Tower, since its release in 2019, the game generated 20.3 million downloads worldwide across the App Store and Google Play, and accumulated $39.4 million from player spending.

The United States accounted for most downloads of the game with 6.2 million installs, with the United Kingdom ranking second, followed by Germany.

The US was also the number one spender with $24.5 million generated for the game, followed by Japan and the UK, respectively.

In 2021 alone, the game saw an additional 741,000 installs and $4.7 million earned from player spending.

At any rate, at least players have a few things to look forward to before the finale arrives.

Starting today, all Daily Assignments will have their rewards increased, and all Potion Brew times will be reduced by 50% with Master Notes. The daily cap on sending and opening Gifts will be removed, and Barrufio’s Brain Elixir potion will now award 3× player XP. 1920s Portkey Portmanteaus will appear on the map more frequently and associated Fragment rewards will be doubled, while Spell Energy and Ingredients will appear on the map more frequently.

Over the coming months, players will also be able to look forward to events, including the release of the remaining Lethal Adversaries.

In November, there will be the Dolores Umbridge Lethal Adversaries Event, the two-part Half-Blood Prince Brilliant Event, and the Lucius Malfoy Lethal Adversaries Event.

In December, players can look forward to Adversaries Events focusing on Bellatrix and Voldemort, there's part two of the Horcrux Hunt, a holiday event, and the two-part Deathly Hallows Brilliant Event.

More details regarding additional game changes coming during the month of January will be announced at a later date.