Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, a mobile game for iOS and Android from developer Jam City, will be released this spring.
It will be the first Harry Potter video game since 2012’s Wonderbook: Book of Spells, for Sony’s PlayStation 3. It will also be the first game released under Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s new Portkey Games label, which the company set up last year. Announced via JK Rowling’s Pottermore site in November, Portkey Games will “work with talented creators to build games that focus on player-generated stories, which will live alongside the magical universe created by JK Rowling”.
The game casts players as Hogwarts students, during the time between Harry’s birth and his admission to the wizarding school. Players can “create a personalised student avatar, attend classes, learn magical skills, form friendships or rivalries with other students, and make pivotal decisions that will influence their character’s story arc as they traverse their years at Hogwarts and grow as a witch or wizard”.
It will face competition from Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, another mobile game from Pokémon Go developer Niantic, also scheduled for release this year through Portkey Games. Like Pokémon Go, Wizards Unite will use augmented reality technology to superimpose the Harry Potter universe onto the real world, placing magical artefacts and creatures around players’ neighbourhoods.
