Here's Why Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Doesn't Have House Competitions

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite stealth-released today on iOS and Android devices, and if you haven't [...]

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite stealth-released today on iOS and Android devices, and if you haven't noticed, it doesn't have house competitions. And there's a good reason for this: Niantic and WB Games San Francisco don't want to divide up players by which house they choose. More specifically, they want friends and families to play together, no matter what house they think they are, and so they have decided against house competitions, at least for now.

"So Houses for me are probably one of the most iconic but intrinsic parts of the Harry Potter universe, I'm a Slytherin born and bred, tried true, there's no way that I would swap to another house," said WB Games San Francisco executive producer Mary Casey when asked about the lack of house competitions by Eurogamer."But at the same time, I want to be able to play with you! And I want to be able to play with that guy over there, and with my son, my husband, my nieces, and we're all different houses."

Casey continued:

"We all have a part to play, we all have a role to play, and that's really important. So Harry Potter to me is really about bringing diversity, diverse people with diverse skillsets together, Harry's friends were - obviously Hermione and Ron had very different skill sets, but people like Neville and Luna as well, we didn't want to exclude them to another team, we wanted to bring them together. And so, we made the decision to not go with competitive houses, and allow people with different houses to play together cooperatively and to overcome the calamity."

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is available, for free, via Android and iOS devices. For those that don't know: it's basically Pokemon Go, but Harry Potter.

"A calamity has befallen the wizarding world, causing artefacts, creatures, people, and even memories to mysteriously appear in the Muggle world," reads an official pitch of the game. "Witches and wizards from across the globe must come together to solve the mystery of The Calamity, overcome the confounding chaotic magic that surrounds these 'Foundables,' and return them to their rightful place, keeping them safe from Muggle eyes."

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