If you're a Harry Potter: Wizards Unite fan then, sorry to say, it's almost time to hang up your wands for the last time - as the mobile augmented reality (AR) game is due to close.

So when exactly is your last chance to slay goblins and demons? Niantic, the game's developer, is giving players until 31 January 2022 to get out there and go questing. After that time the game will be removed from both Google's Play Games and Apple's App Store.

So why is Niantic 'doing a Cedric Diggory' with Harry Potter: Wizards Unite? The company also runs Pokemon Go, which has been hugely popular and has continued for much longer than Potter's just-over-two-years stint as a mobile AR game.

"Not all games are meant to last forever," reads the official blog post from the developer. Take that as you will: presumably the game just isn't profitable enough to be worth running beyond a given point. However, there is more to come from the game in the closing final few months, including "a variety of in-game events, new content and gameplay changes".

It's certainly not an end to Niantic's ongoing vision for AR mobile games either. The developer has just launched Pikmin Bloom, while Transformers: Heavy Metal is due in the future (the latter title is currently in soft launch stage for players in New Zealand, Phillipines and Denmark only).

But if a franchise as deeply loved as Harry Potter can't survive, then how will Pikmin and Transformers stand the test of time? "We'll take all of the learnings from Harry Potter: Wizards Unite into our other projects," says Niantic.

Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.