Posted in: Games, Mobile Games, Niantic, Pokémon GO | Tagged: harry potter, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, hpwu, Niantic, Wizards Unite

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Darkness Unleashed Review

The surprise Halloween event, Darkness Unleashed, is wrapping up in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. This was essentially structured as a Wizarding Weekend, with a boost in a certain type of Foundables and a one-page Special Assignment. Considering how the October Wizarding Weekend was the beginning of the major backlash against Niantic for the difficulty of recent Harry Potter: Wizards Unite events, many longtime players were eyeing this event to see if the company was able to improve their shorter events the way that they improved their weekend events. So how did the Darkness Unleashed event play out?

Overall, the Foundables boosted in the wild were great. The fact that they chose Dementors and Boggarts was perfect for Halloween, but the event also had major issues.

Niantic should work on figuring out what role these one-off events such as this one and the Wizarding Weekends play in the narrative. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is a narrative game. It is the mystery in the game's story that prevents it from being a game that is just about completing pictures in the Registry. The Brilliant Events are keeping this game interesting, so it would be a good move for Niantic to incorporate at least some narrative into these events. For example, the previous Brilliant Event was called "Darkness Rising." You'd think this "Darkness Unleashed" event would be the culmination of that, as the title suggests, but it was simply a Special Assignment with Foundables that are already available. The Foundables were well-chosen and perfectly spooky, but the fact remains that Brilliant Events elevate the game while something like this grows tedious pretty quickly.

While the Special Assignment was far more player-friendly than the last Wizarding Weekend, it would be nice to see Harry Potter: Wizards Unite do away entirely with tasks that ask players to place a certain amount of images in the Registry. This goes against the spirit of the game, as it makes people want to wait to place until events come.

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite would do well to take a page out of Pokémon GO's book. During certain events, hard-to-catch Pokémon become less difficult to catch when they are boosted. It would have been a good idea to do this to some of the Foundables in this event, as it begins to feel like Niantic is choosing Foundables made to eat your spell energy so that people get frustrated and head to the shop to buy more.

While it was an improvement over previous Wizarding Weekends, there is still a lot of work needs to be done to improve Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Many abandoned the game early on because of its focus on narrative, but that narrative is what makes it special. Niantic would do well to lean into making this game an in-depth, immersive experience for readers because that is exactly what many of those who still play it look for when coming to the game.

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