New Details! Wizards Unite Fan Festival Global Challenge and Dragons

Yesterday, the Wizards Unite team released more details on the Global Challenge happening worldwide this weekend (August 31 and September 1) and dragons. There is a lot of information to unpack, but we’ve got you covered.

Read on for details about the Global Challenge, Dragons, special Dragon Egg Portkeys, and the upcoming Day of the Dragons. (Phew, that’s a lot of Dragons!) 

We have also been putting together some additional guides to help you out this weekend. First, for those making it out to Indianapolis, check out the Wizards Unite Fan Festival Attendee Guide for info on checking in, what to bring, and the full list of Special Assignments (hidden under a spoiler tag, don't worry).

For everyone else, head on over to the Global Challenge Guide for details and tips on completing this weekend's Global Challenge.

We also have a full Day of the Dragons Guide coming soon, so stay tuned!

The Global Challenge, like Community Day, is a format that players of Niantic’s other games, Ingress and Pokémon GO, will already be familiar with. While a limited number of players participate in an official, in-person event, players around the globe are also given goals to work toward in order to unlock global bonuses.

In other words, everyone gets to participate in part of the festivities, even if they can’t make it to the event.

For the first-ever Wizards Unite Fan Festival, players worldwide will be able to participate in a special Global Challenge and help unlock a week of bonuses for all players. The task for this Global Challenge is pretty straight forward: pick up and unlock special Dragon Egg Portkeys throughout the weekend. 

By unlocking these special Portkeys, players worldwide will be able to unlock a week of bonuses, from September 2 at 10:00 AM PDT to September 9 at 10:00 AM PDT. Each Dragon Egg counts toward one of the four bonuses available, so players will need to open four million Portkeys total to unlock all four bonuses. 

Here are all the possible bonuses and their associated Dragon Eggs:

• 25% increased Wizarding XP

  • Requires: 1,000,000 Chinese Fireball Eggs 

• ½ Portkey Distance

  • Requires: 1,000,000 Antipodean Opaleye Eggs

• ½ Brewing Time

  • Requires: 1,000,000 Peruvian Vipertooth Eggs

• 1-hour Dark Detectors

  • Requires: 1,000,000 Common Welsh Green Eggs

The Global Challenge will last only 48 hours, from 9:00 EDT / 13:00 UTC on Saturday, August 31, until 9:00 EDT / 13:00 UTC on Monday, September 2.

As part of the Global Challenge, attendees at WUFF will also have a special task to complete: return 150,000 Dragon Oddities. Completing this task will unlock a special Day of the Dragons event worldwide on September 7.

So about those special Dragon Egg Portkeys. First of all, before anyone panics at the thought of unlocking four million Portkeys in one weekend, players will be relieved to know that these special Portkeys unlock after only 1km of walking. 

Second, for players who want to be strategic about which Portkeys they unlock, whether to place each image (players will need 4 fragments of each) or to unlock their favourite global bonus, there’s another piece of good news.

Note: Originally, the registry (and this article) listed the Dragon Eggs as each requiring 12 fragments to place. This has since been changed to only 4. Players may need to restart the app to see the changes.

All four Portkey Portmaneaus have a unique design, and, according to the official news release, players will be able to differentiate the special Portkeys from each other on the map.

Here’s what the four new Portkeys will look like:

From left to right, that's Chinese Fireball, Antipodean Opaleye, Peruvian Vipertooth, and Common Welsh Green.

Dragons

While players at WUFF will have the chance to collect all four of the brand-new dragons, the rest of players around the world will get their first chance to tame—er, return—a dragon on September 7, when dragons will be released as regional Oddities.

Here’s where players can expect to find each of the new dragons:

While many players have expressed disappointment about Dragons being region-locked, players will have the chance to encounter a Dragon not from their region on the upcoming Day of the Dragons, should attendees at WUFF unlock it.

Yesterday’s release also brought us information on a brand-new event, hopefully coming to Wizards Unite on September 7. From the information available so far, Day of the Dragons will be like a Dragon-themed Community Day.

The event will last three hours, during the usual Wizards Unite Community Day hours, and will feature a Dragon not typically found in the area. Here are the hours for the event:

• Asia-Pacific: September 7, from 1:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M. AEST (UTC +10)

• Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India: September 7, from 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. UTC

• Americas and Greenland: September 7, from 11:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. PDT (UTC -7)

Players can “vote” on which Dragon they’d like to see visit their area by unlocking more of that Dragon’s Eggs than any other—the most popular Eggs in each region will decide which Dragon pays a visit for Day of the Dragons!

The post also mentions bonus Wizarding XP for returning Dragons, though it does not say how much bonus WXP players should expect, or how that bonus will stack with the potential 25% increased Wizarding XP from the Global Challenge bonuses.

Stay tuned for a full guide on how to prepare for Day of the Dragons, including any further details that might be released.

If you like Dragons even half as much as Charlie Weasley (cue Tonks and the Aurors’ 1991 (Charlie Weasley)), there’s a lot to look forward to in the next week or two in Wizards Unite! Dragons, dragons, and a bit more dragons too. 

If you're looking for more information, be sure to check out the Wizards Unite Fan Festival Attendee Guide for those headed to Indianapolis and the Global Challenge Guide for everyone else. We'll also have a Day of the Dragons Guide soon, so stay tuned!