How to Get More Spell Energy in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is all about casting spells and that requires spell energy. Here’s how you make sure you’re always ready to wield your wand by managing and getting more spell energy in Niantic’s latest game.

How Spell Energy Works

When you walk around the world different icons will spawn on the map. From the Dark Arts and Hogwarts School to Magizoology and the Wonders of the Wizarding World: these lost objects, creatures, and people need you to send them back to their rightful place that means casting a spell to remove the confoundables keeping it there. This means tracing quickly on your screen and using some spell energy.

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PS4 Deal: PS Plus Is Cheaper Than Ever At Only $36 For 12 Months

PlayStation Plus has been unusually cheap these days, starting with Sony’s E3 2019 Days of Play sale that offered the annual membership for $40 and an already sold-out flash sale at Newegg with the same deal. However, the latest discount on PS Plus is the most affordable deal we’ve seen, and it’s going down over at MassGenie now through June 30 (or while supplies last). For a limited time, you can get a year of PS Plus for only $36–and thousands have already claimed the deal.

Get 12 months of PS Plus for $36 at MassGenie »

Here’s how the deal works: Click the link above, and you’ll be prompted to either sign in or create a free account at MassGenie (there’s no guest checkout for Power Deals). After that, you’ll be redirected to checkout, where you’ll see the PS Plus 12-month membership is already in your cart with the promo code PSPLUS12MO applied, dropping the price to $36. At that point, you just have to fill out all the normal checkout information and click “submit Power Deal.” Within a few days, you’ll receive an email with the PS Plus digital code, and you’ll also be able to view the code in your order history, listed as the “tracking ID.” You can check out the PS Plus deal page for more info.

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The PS Plus code can then be redeemed in the PlayStation Store, and even if you still have some time left on your membership, PS Plus subscriptions can be stacked to automatically extend your time, saving you money in the future.

A PS Plus subscription is a must-have for most PS4 players, as it enables you to play online with friends and people around the world. In addition, you’ll get regular discounts on games like Persona 5, which is only $14 for members right now, or Shenmue I & II, which is $18, as well as free monthly PS4 games. PS Plus members often get early access to demos and beta tests for upcoming releases, like Monster Hunter World’s new full-size expansion, Iceborne, which is available exclusively for PS Plus members this weekend.

Sony Music Launches Lost Rings Imprint, Promotes Three Artists That Love Gaming

Sony Music Entertainment has launched a new imprint called Lost Rings, creating a space to promote artists who produce original content that combine their love of video games and music. Currently, Lost Rings is a collective of three artists: BlackKrystel, BunnyMightGameU, and Sunzi.

“Gamers have such an authentic community,” Lost Rings A&R Tebs Maqubela said. “They tend to be passionate, super involved with their world, and experts in their craft. They can tell right away when someone is an outsider; in that sense, it is very similar to music, especially genres like hip hop. Those characteristics that Bunny, BlackKrystel, and Sunzi have on lock–knowing your space, having a specific identity, building a world around you–are all qualities that they learned and perfected in gaming that translated over to songwriting and music making. They are writing about themselves and their world and they intrinsically knew how to do that and felt comfortable doing so.”

Alongside the reveal of Lost Rings, all three of its artists have each released a new song and accompanying music video. BlackKrystel’s is Party Up, while Bunny’s is Game U, and Sunzi stars in Joystick ‘Em Up. While each song focuses on gaming, they reflect each of the artists’ other passions as well. BlackKrystal’s Party Up also celebrates her love of anime, for instance. You can listen to or purchase the three songs via the links below.

“Working with the Lost Rings artists is seamless as I mostly just had to find the right collaborators for them, collaborators who would be long term partners,” Maqubela said. “For example, Bunny and Sunzi have the same producer, and the other day they were hanging out and playing PS4. There is a true working relationship there. The feedback I had for the artists was always structural and pertaining to arrangements. The verses, subject matter, world play, and raw matter was all them. They always came to the table with fleshed out ideas. For example, Bunny speaks Spanish and loves Latin music, and brought up doing a song in Spanish, so we set about working on that.”

Senior director of publicity Sarah Cunningham added that each artist was 100 percent involved in creating their song, the accompanying music video, and their style. The references in each song were decided by each artist as well. “They bring their own ideas to the table and they fully sign off on all of their own creative,” she said. “We work collaboratively with them.”

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s Exploration Inspired By Metroid

After an impressive showing during EA Play at E3 2019, new details about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order have emerged. A Respawn Entertainment developer cites the Metroid series as a prominent influence on how exploration is handled in the upcoming third-person action-adventure game.

Lead level designer Jeff Magers sat down with GameInformer to discuss Jedi: Fallen Order’s exploration. Magers said it’s “an exploration game from the level design perspective, at its core” and that “traversal feels snappy [and] responsive.” But while things like “mixing in [the] wide range of traversal tools [to] make the moment-to-moment feel really good” and “no UI objectives in the world” sound nice, things got interesting when Magers mentioned how Metroid (among other titles like The Legend of Zelda franchise and the Dark Souls games) influenced the hotly-anticipated Star Wars game.

“Metroid absolutely served as an inspiration for us,” Magers told GamerInformer. “What the Metroid-style level design does for us is somewhat [of] a way to give the player guided exploration. A ton of freedom within the world, but at the same time we can deliver really handcrafted moments and really focus on the moment-to-moment.” Magers then described design sensibilities common in Metroidvanias: hidden secrets, backtracking, abilities/weapons that unlock new areas. For Jedi: Fallen Order, “Force powers are lock-and-key mechanisms,” meaning that behind the Force push gate you couldn’t get through earlier, “Maybe there’s a whole other area [or] maybe there’s a little secret.”

Since hidden pathways and secrets to discover abound, Jedi: Fallen Order is not really linear. “We have linear sections of the game,” Magers said. “And each, I’d say 30-minute to one hour section that we call a level… will be somewhat linear, although there [are] different branching options, different choices to make, different secrets to find [and] areas to explore. But when it really opens up is kind of at a macro level. You will be retraversing through these levels that earlier was kind of more of a linear experience… with your new tools and your upgraded hero. It really aligns with kind of the goal of the game, which is to become a Jedi.” It sounds like the Jedi has become the master of Jedivania.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will launch on November 15 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.