Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Still Lacks A Key Pokemon Go Feature

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is now officially available in the US and UK, following its earlier release in Australia and New Zealand. The new Harry Potter game from Warner Bros. and Niantic shares many commonalities with its predecessor, Pokemon Go, although it packs more content right out of the gate than Go did when it launched three years ago. And while it's clearly built on the same foundation as Go, Wizards Unite is missing one significant feature the Pokemon mobile game has.

Wizards Unite doesn't yet appear to have its own equivalent of Pokemon Go's Adventure Sync. That feature rolled out for Go back in October and allows the game to keep track of the distance you walk, even when the app is running in the background. Not only was it a boon for the game's battery life, it made it much easier to hatch Eggs, as you wouldn't need to have the game open the whole time while walking around.

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Wizards Unite has its own version of Eggs in Portkeys, which will take you to a Wizarding World location once you've walked a certain distance. However, because the game lacks an Adventure Sync-like feature, that means you need to keep it open the whole time in order for it to log the distance you've traveled, which makes activating Portkeys a relative hassle.

Of course, considering Wizards Unite has only been live for a short time, it's still very much early days for the game. Pokemon Go didn't get its Adventure Sync until more than two years after it launched, so Niantic will presumably add a similar feature to Wizards Unite sometime down the line. As of right now, however, you'll need to keep the game open if you're hoping to activate any Portkeys you find.

There is much more to Wizards Unite than just Portkeys. The game also has a Profession system, which allows you to upgrade yourself with perks and abilities as you level up. You can read more details about those in our Wizards Unite Professions guide. We've also put together a Wizards Unite glossary guide to help you familiarize yourself with the game's vast array of terminology. For even more coverage, be sure to check out our Harry Potter: Wizards Unite hub page.