Niantic is ending support for Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. The studio announced today it will shutter the AR game on January 31st, 2022. Ahead of the sunset, it plans to delist the title from the App Store, Google Play and Galaxy Store on December 6th. That same day, it will also remove all in-app purchases from the experience.
Niantic first launched Wizards Unite back in 2019. And in many ways, it never replicated the runaway success of Pokémon Go. “Not all games are meant to last forever,” the company said of the decision to stop working on the title. “Our goal with Harry Potter: Wizards Unite was to bring the magic of the wizarding world to life for millions of players as they stepped outside and explored their neighborhoods. We accomplished that together, delivering a two-year narrative story arc that will soon complete.”
For Niantic, this is the second game it has decided to shut down in less than two months. In September, it announced it was discontinuing development on Catan: World Explorers before the game was even widely available outside of a few select markets. Then, as now, Niantic says it will take what it learned from the experience and apply it to future projects.
Presumably that includes Pikmin Bloom, which recently launched in Singapore and Australia, as well as the upcoming Transformers: Heavy Metal. In total, the studio says it’s working on nine games and apps, some of which will soft-launch next year.