I know we all wanted it to last forever but alas, the Wizengamot decided differently.

Without the game there's not much left for this community. Should I lock the sub and preserve it as the memory it has become?

View Poll

Brynn K. from Niantic sent me my game data. It’s a Google Drive link valid for 30 days to a zip archive that contains a bunch of text files. It’s bittersweet to look through it, but I’m collating it with my eventual PDF full of my screenshots, the storyline PDFs, and some animation videos. Take care, everyone!

Did anybody choose to download their data from the game? I got mine, but the one thing I was hoping for (XP gains over time) was not there. Is anyone going to do anything fun with theirs?

i still habitually click on the game from time to time. i know i should go ahead and delete it already...

I'd like to coordinate going Ultra but don't know where else you are (discord, etc). I actuallyhave a few people friended from here who are now playing in Pokemon Go, and I'd love to be able to coordinate going Ultra and Bestie with them too when it happens.
If you're new to PoGO and playing people who were automatically friended through WU, keep in mind that friending up often happens on event days - people will often post info in their buddy's name (like EggCD11am) so you know that's when they'll be opening a gift that will boost you both to the next level of friendship.

Did they take down the taskforcetimes site? I wanted to read up on the last pieces of the story, but it times out for me...

I stopped playing Wizards Unite in late 2020 when the game seemingly hit a standstill.

What did the story end up being?

It just seems like aside from Pokémon go there’s nothing that remotely compares.. wondering if I’m missing anything (pls🤞😓🙏)

I am sad to say the hag was my last foundable caught. The game closed on me before I could collect anything else. The Hag was the one foundable that creeped me out.

Hi there!

I'm Matthew Lee, a researcher affiliated with Macquarie University (& formerly the University of Pennsylvania), whose research examines the impact of AR games like Pokémon GO and Wizards Unite. You might have seen or participated in one of the studies my team has done in the last couple of years on how COVID impacted the experiences of those playing AR games (the findings for two of which have been written up here of which you may find (here) and (here)).

We're interested in seeing if AR games have long-term effects on people's behavior that persist after people stop playing, and how people's experiences with the game and the IP behind it might affect this. With Wizards Unite having just shut down, we're launching a half-year study to see what kind of impact playing HPWU had on players' lives.

Did it affect your physical and mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic years? Did it help you walk more or provide an opportunity to spend time with family? Did it create any meaningful moments for you? Did participating in HPWU related communities help ease the sense of isolation? And with HPWU coming to an end after two years, do you plan on finding an alternative to keep up their walking or playing routine (another AR game, perhaps)?

The initial survey for this study will be found at (https://limesurvey.mq.edu.au/index.php/793761?lang=en), and will be open until February 16th.

Note that we plan on contacting those who respond to our initial survey for two follow-up surveys (3 and 6 months after the first closes) to see how players' lives and routines may have changed, so we'll be asking for an email address where you be reached!

If you have played Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, are at least 18 years old, and can read fluent English, please consider participating in this survey or sharing it with others you know who might be interested! I'd love to be able to show the world what impact HPWU had in the short time it was around (and after), and I'm asking for your help.

Thank you once again for your time and generosity! It's been an honor to have been part of the HPWU community with you all!

______

This survey is deployed on (r/harrypotterwu), (r/harrypotterwufriends), and (r/WizardsUnite). If you visit these subreddits at the same time, you will see this post being pinned in all 3 subreddits. It is the same survey in all these places.

Hi everyone, I hope you’re coping in the aftermath. I was wanting to put together a playlist of the musical cues from the game using the movie soundtracks. Can anyone help me identify which song (and which movie) the music comes from? Thanks!

EDIT: Sorcerer’s Stone soundtrack unless otherwise noted:

Opening: Hedwig’s Theme (of course)

Map: Fawkes the Phoenix

Diagon Alley: Diagon Alley and the Gringotts Vault

Potion Brewing: Double Trouble (PoA)

Profile: A Window to the Past (PoA)

Care of Magical Creatures: The Ministry of Magic (OotP)

Challenge Lobby: The Quidditch Match

Fortress Map and Dark Encounter: The Chess Game

Thanks for the input, u/ShadowSparks6532!

Also, I found a YouTuber going by mikuhl posted a Wizards Unite OST.

When the end of "Wizards Unite" was announced, I posted this idea:

https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotterwu/comments/qm5qxi/how_to_mark_the_end_of_hpwu/

It got some up-votes and was Pinned for a while. (Thanks Mods!)

​

Three months later, here are two pics of me raging against the end: lighting up all my local Inns, Greenhouses and Fortresses on the final night of HPWU:

​

https://preview.redd.it/0rg4zfq8m5f81.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb6ce6c651e7bc735d9d486c2fe83ab0ab50b2df

​

​

https://preview.redd.it/zrqd1azdm5f81.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=775f9b7294c6c18a0ccb8328620fbbcd822f2ab6

I kept all the Inns blazing with Dark Detectors for a couple of hours, and each Fortress as I walked close by. Limited only by my own walking speed.

All the local greenhouses were planted with Toadstools, so they would have STILL been lit up when Niantic finally pulled the plug on the servers. I'm not sure why that makes me happy, but somehow it does.

​

I came. I played. I had a REALLY good time.

So thanks HPWU and all the minds behind it.

​

I am sure I'm not alone in saying that you'll be missed.

​

Calamity ended and Mischief managed.

Sighs...

I've had Niantic apps on my phone shortly after Ingress first came out, but for the first time in over 6 years...my phone will be Niantic-free.

I was still playing Ingress once in a great while before uninstalling it a few months back, had gotten rid of Pokemon Go a couple of years ago, and have just been focusing on WU. But now that WU is shut down, that's the end of it.

It's been fun Niantic! Really wished you had come up with some special event for January for all us loyalists, really disappointed that they didn't...but oh well.

After the first few months no one in my country was playing, I put my code on some sites and got some friends. Most didn't stick with the game, some moved to PoGo so I have them there. A couple did not. I'm so sad I'll never get to, not even meet them, but just tell them how much their gifts meant to me. So I make this post so maybe if they search my WU handle, they find this. So this is from Ishildur the ravenclaw, the person from Iceland you added from a site who's name I don't even remember.

BettySmith, thank you so much. You were the only one who played till the very end, Canadian consistency to the very end! Your gifts always brought a smile to my face. It brought a little relief to my life that as my mobility got further impaired I could still always, one time a day, open WU and there without fail the image of the chair sculpture would await me on your gift. I will miss that, it was a constant in a time of no constants and it meant the world to me. I hope one day we will meet again in some game, having you as a friend in WU brought a smile to my face once a day. That's something. I hope you are well and find something else fun to do waiting for the bus (yes, I missed the sculpture so much I looked for it on google just to see it one last time and saw the bus stop near it) each day.

DepperStone, I was so worried about you during the pandemic. Italy got hit so hard and I kept hoping you were just unable to play and not that you or someone close to you was sick. I tried to send you the very best gifts after you were able to return to playing. Thank you for your gifts, your city looks beautiful and like one of those places I've always dreamt of visiting.

I sadly didn't get a chance to screenshot the rest of my friends list, or anything else for that matter. I missed out on the last day due to emergencies. If one of you finds this, the others who's names I can't remember because I am terrible with names... Thank you too, I know the two of you in Poland, you're from the same city (starts with S) and friends/relatives, thank you both for adding me. I want so much to go to Poland one of these days, see where my great grand father came from. Germany, I can say your handle but I cannot for the life of me spell it, GrosserMu.. no, can't, tried, can't!! Your gifts reminded me of going to your country with my mom, a very treasured memory, meeting one of our German relatives. Thank you as well. Anyone I missed, thank you. There was no one to play with in Iceland, so your gifts made me feel connected at a time I wasn't able to go anywhere (not just due to pandemic, my mobility got way worse).

What about the rest of you on this reddit? What would you want some of the friends you didn't add from reddit and have no way to contact to be able to see if they went and looked for your WU handle?

If you want to know how I was able to play until then easy:

1- until midnight Hawaii time, you can just switch your timezone

2- After that you need to stay in a safe screen (fortress reward screen/Diagon alley...)

Until the very end

Mischief managed

​

https://preview.redd.it/ihln6mn3n2f81.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b10f0eb576bcf1a12fe8db35815608405f45442

I cried yesterday and now I'm crying again. I guess I should just unfollow this sub and forget right? Especially because I thought I wouldn't even know how the game goes down. Because I deleted it months ago. And it was the second time I deleted it.

I guess we all know this frustration. The start? It was great! I don't know if I play since release but my first day was June 22 2019. So pretty close. I was enjoying myself. I bought headphones. I was out of love with Pokemon Go so I decided to quit it in favour of HPWU. I was constantly taking an hour to walk 1,5 km from work because these animations? Gorgeous, and you couldn't tap through them.

The zones frustrated me a lot. My entire town was sports flag. There were some places here and there which were neutral. I went there once at 4 am to catch some doxies at dawn. I walked in a neutral zone for an hour and didn't catch any. And centaurs which were nonexistent in my town too...

I had to sit for hours spinning my couch inn, then go sit by a nearby fortress, then repeat. I could go to where the good spawns were but there were no inns. I still remember how fun it was to hunt for the werewolves the first night they were out. I actually felt this chill. And the first Brilliant event? Those sounds! The unicorns were so pretty. It was September after the rain, evening, so good.

I decided to quit because I couldn't constantly manage the resources anymore.

When COVID hit, I returned. There was once again nothing to do in Pokemon GO, I was out of job and I was bored. And I heard about good quarantine bonuses. And those were really good! Especially the Bus. I could play again and not grind for hours! I wasn't outside much at all but I still went to a greenhouse on a community day to make more extimulos.

Then the bus parties started. We had several groups to meet at the bus and fight, all great players. I wanted to be more versatile so I wanted to grind those professions faster and do whichever was needed. I think about at the time when I finished, I stopped doing D5 with groups. It was frustrating to wait for everyone. And I got a job again, so I had less time.

The whole game was starting to feel more and more grindy. You can get all tonics in the world and all the energy but you need more and more to get those books for the 2nd branch of the profession, and I'm not even talking about the death marks. That was a different type of grind, these 3 villains in a row. (On my last day I got one that had four, I guess this was a new Lethal that was introduced while I was out. I managed to beat 3 before it killed me and fled.) I was saving all the marks for later. So I had about 40 yesterday.

I was still doing Brilliant events but I was always hoping that one day the game feels the same as at the start you know? And that there's some goal in all this grinding. I still was thinking about a day when everything will become better. You know? When we have parties in D5, when we can not only grind professions but actually fight someone, when COVID is no more and the flags are back but are more varied, and energy is plentiful again.

So I quit, and then in some time, I got a notice that the game was closing.

I guess I feel frustrated? Because of what could be but never came to be. If only they... Right? Everything could have been so much better, it's Harry Potter so just take its fans and make them enjoy another game. But from the start many were put off by atrocious pricing and grindiness, and then bugs, ignore, the POI base not being updated by many months and so on... Black screen says hi. Now we all have it.

So I downloaded the game again and went to say goodbye. I realized I don't really want to do anything. But I still made a video, even though I made a couple of videos of everything lagging and not working first. I upgraded my skills at random, I tapped all those shiny pictures on brilliant pages. They seemingly revamped the whole thing so I could barely find the ones that I did.

I don't know. I guess that's life? Not everything has a happy or logical ending, like in movies. I'm glad that I at least had no idea that I were level 58 so I didn't feel obliged to get to 60. I could've used more resources I guess. At least I was putting those eyes on inns just when I felt like it. I still have too many of them left.

Oh well.

My wife and I started playing Pokemon Go as a way to spend time together. It was easy to play and not overly complicated even when raids were the huge thing. She is a huge Harry Potter fan and when Wizards Unite came out she was quick to switch over (not enough time to play both reliably). I followed shortly after even though I was never a big fan of the Potter series. I liked to believe my character was Harry Dresden recruited to the Potterverse to help with the calamity. I never chose a house because Dresden would never let himself be labeled as such. My wife and I spent many hours crushing fortresses (she was an auror, and I was a professor) or going around to find specific foundables needed for an event. It was common to hear "There is an "X" here" in our household just for the other to quickly grab the phone to get whatever it was. Family didn't quite understand since none of them played and would usually just laugh at how nerdy we were about it. Maybe we will go back to POGO but it unsure right now.

I tip my hat to the devs for making a great game that, while not perfect, was fun and the right mixture of active and passive playing. As frustrating as it could be at times, I am going to miss it greatly.

Thank you all for being on this journey. It's the first game I have played until the end like this and I won't forget the bittersweet experience.

See you in the next game!