This past Tuesday our own Tasos Laserrider had an opportunity to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood to attend a special pre-launch event for Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (Free), the (at that time) upcoming “Pokemon GO but with Harry Potter" augmented reality mobile game from the folks at Niantic. We’ve been hearing about a Harry Potter AR game ever since Pokemon GO took the world by storm a few years ago, but it wasn’t until this year that things started feeling more serious as new trailers were released and a soft launch took place in select regions. As Tasos found out on Tuesday, Niantic planned to launch Harry Potter: Wizards Unite this Friday, which is tomorrow. But as you might be aware, it’s today, not tomorrow, and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is already available on both iOS and Android. It’s like somebody cast an early release spell or something.

As Tasos detailed in his preview from earlier today, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is quite a bit more robust that Pokemon GO with a heavier emphasis on narrative, with storyline arcs planned to take place over the course of months and even years, and a greater emphasis on cooperative play with others. I think Pokemon GO is in a great spot nowadays but I also remember how rough of an experience it was when it originally launched back in the summer of 2016. It’s come a long way thanks to tons of updates over the years. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite actually has the benefit of launching in a post-Pokemon GO world, so I think it’s no surprise to see it have a bit more solid of a foundation that its sibling did when it first launched. Whatever the case, if you enjoy Pokemon GO or just Harry Potter in general, there’s no reason not to give Harry Potter: Wizards Unite a download on either the iOS App Store or on the Google Play Store for Android.