World enews: Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is shutting down next year

Niantic, the developers of the smash hit Pokémon Go, will be shutting down its Harry Potter-themed AR game Harry Potter: Wizard’s Unite on January 31st, 2022. The game will be pulled from the App Store, Google Play, and Galaxy Store on December 6th, and that same day, you will no longer be able to make in-game purchases, according to the game’s website. The game’s community forum and social media channels will be closed on January 31st as well.

In a blog post and FAQ, Niantic didn’t specify why it decided to shut down Harry Potter: Wizard’s Unite. But we weren’t impressed when we first tried it in 2019, and the game never reached the same level of popularity as Pokémon Go, which is still incredibly relevant despite being more than five years old.

There hasn’t been another AR hit quite on the level of Pokémon Go; Niantic’s AR adaptation of Catan will fully shut down this month, while Microsoft closed down Minecraft Earth in June. That hasn’t stopped Niantic from trying, though, as it just released the Pikmin-focused AR game Pikmin Bloom and has an AR Transformers game in the works.