Harry Potter: Wizards Unite trailer sets the stage for a wizarding crisis

It definitely feels like we're closing in on the release date of Niantic's Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. At the beginning of the month, Niantic rolled the game into beta in some regions of the world, and now the company has published a new trailer for the game. The trailer doesn't provide any details we didn't know about before, but it certainly sets the stage for the conflict at the center of the game.

For those who may need a bit of a refresher, Wizards Unite tasks players with preventing a calamity for the wizarding world. For years, the world of wizards and magic has been kept hidden from muggles – regular humans. Now, however, magical artifacts and creatures have started appearing in the muggle world, threatening to expose the existence of magic to people who are probably better off not knowing about it.

The trailer that Niantic published today gives us a look at all of these things going wrong. Humans are bewildered as they encounter magical items and creatures that defy logic, and the Death Eaters are getting bold, appearing in public places and threatening the muggles of the non-magical world. It will be our jobs as players to stop the exposure of the wizarding world and keep it hidden from the masses.

Or, at least it will be once the game finally releases, but we still don't know when that's happening. Today's trailer doesn't even narrow things down for us – Harry Potter: Wizards Unite still has a vague 2019 release window, with Niantic not getting anymore specific than that.

We may soon find out, though. Wizards Unite is currently in beta testing in New Zealand and Austalia, and if the game follows Pokemon GO's lead, that means it shouldn't be long before we see the beta launch in other regions around the world. We'll keep our eyes peeled for more news about Wizards Unite, but for now, this trailer will have to suffice.