Harry Potter: Wizards Unite — first look and reflections
So it’s landed at last. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, trailed for over 18 months, is finally on the app stores (in the UK and US, at least) and, judging from the noise on social media, is already busy sending an army of wizards out into the world to explore and try to rectify ‘the calamity’.
This is happening at an interesting time for me personally. I read the books as a teenager / twenty-something and watched the films. I was never an uber-fan, but I always enjoyed narratives of the ‘near-reality’ kind — believable alternate universes that, with just a few small differences, closely resembled our own.
My seven year-old son is now following the same path, and we are re-reading the books together, followed by the films (turns out I’m a stickler for the rules: read the book, THEN watch the film!). As a result, he is beside himself that this game has arrived, giving him the opportunity to literally step into the story — and I’m enjoying reliving the experience through his eyes.
And of course I have a professional interest, too — Arcade works primarily with AR, so a game that promises to build on the good work of Pokemon GO in establishing the technology as a commonplace part of digital experiences can only be a good thing. Which also means that spending some time playing the game on the day of release counts, remarkably, as work.
So, two main questions. 1) Is it any good? And 2) What effect is it going to have on the way we engage with stories, games and other content?
Is it any good?
Initial reactions are that it has plenty of surface-level value. Simply stepping into the shoes of a wizard or witch, with a role to play in a magical story that’s happening in the real world all around you is already a fantastical experience. Lovely touches like using Snapchat-style AR ‘lenses’ to create your character portrait and choosing your own wizarding name make it feel authentic, and enormous fun.
We are very quickly introduced to our first encounter, which involves casting a spell to free Hagrid from a spider-web — which all happens in our kitchen, thanks to the AR. My son is thrilled and wants to start exploring, but sadly for him it’s time to head off to school, although not before we’ve had a chance to save a baby niffler in the garden. I think I can tell how this evening might spent…
As is the case with Pokemon GO (discussed further here), the AR element is an incredibly effective way of immersing us, almost sub-consciously, into the Harry Potter universe. Seeing creatures in our physical surroundings acts as a catalyst for our imaginations. My son’s perceptions of the environment around him have been changed by the experiences we had this morning — throughout his school day he will be aware of a new, hidden world, full of magical creatures. He may not be able to see them, but they’re there. This is the effect of AR: it can be powerful in small doses, and creates a lasting impact.
It also becomes quite quickly apparent that although it’s simple enough to dive in, there’s a lot of depth here. Niantic now has plenty of experience of how to immerse new players in ‘real world’ games, and strikes an effective balance between rewarding quickly completed tasks and offering a sense of more challenging gameplay as you progress. A compelling, evolving story comes to light as you begin to explore, and as they have proven with previous hits Ingress and Pokemon GO, big, open-world gaming landscapes benefit from big, open-world narrative.
What effect is it going to have?
The big effects here are twofold: the normalisation of digital reality, and the shift from ‘sit & watch’ experiences towards those that are more ‘go & play’.
The normalisation of digital reality
This is a powerful, positive effect (explored in greater detail here) in which the novelty value of emergent immersive technology begins to disappear, replaced by familiarity and comfort. As more and more of our daily experiences are infused with technology, it all just becomes commonplace. We no longer shout about how impressive the tech is, and instead relegate it to a supporting role. The experience becomes king, which is exactly as it should be.
If Wizards Unite meets the expectations of most observers in becoming the latest global gaming phenomenon, this trend towards normalisation of immersive tech will get a huge acceleration.
Go & Play
We introduced Arcade’s ‘Experience Matrix’ a few months ago, a model for mapping different types of experience based on two axes, passive vs active participation and stationary vs moving physical activity.
As of today, Wizards Unite joins the Harry Potter books, films, console games, theme parks and plays, and completes the full set of experiences available to fans. Niantic is the leader in developing real world contextual games but is by no means alone.
The combination of an increasingly normalised relationship with immersive experiences and a growing proliferation of location-specific mobile games will lead to more and more entertainment properties exploring these ‘Go & Play’ means of engaging audiences.
So: Wizards Unite is good fun and the future is incredibly bright for entertainment experiences that harness the power of digital reality.
But that’s for the future. Now, where did I put that wand…?
