On Thursday, November 9, the same company that gave the world the gift of Pokémon Go blessed us with another announcement: We can all be wizards and witches for real now. Yes, that’s right, Niantic Labs has officially paired with Warner Bros. in order to present us with the gift of magic. The users will be able to surround themselves with digital images on top of all real-life objects when within the game in an augmented reality game setting.
“Players will learn spells, explore their real-world neighborhoods and cities to discover and fight legendary beasts and team up with others to take down powerful enemies,” the company said in a statement. The game, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite will be released sometime in 2018 and while the exact details are unknown, everybody is losing their minds. This game will have players be able to cast spells, catch different magical beasts and truly immerse themselves in the world of Harry Potter.
According to TechCrunch, the website that first broke the news of the game, Niantic’s other games “would actually translate pretty well to the fictional Harry Potter universe, and seems almost ready-made for a fantasy spell-casting coat of paint to replace its science-fiction special forces veneer.” It’s meant to be, right?
This game will let all our inner Potter-heads indulge in their greatest fantasy, actually being immersed in the magic. There will, supposedly, being certain locations integrated within the game as well, such as King’s Cross to make the game more sound. For those of us who will not be studying abroad in London during that time, maybe there will be some additional locations such as Harry Potter World at Universal? One can at least hope.
“Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, uses state-of-the-art augmented reality technology to reveal the magic all around us. Explore real-world neighborhoods and cities to discover mysterious artifacts, learn to cast spells, and encounter legendary beasts and iconic characters along the way!” To read more from their official website (I’m still in disbelief too), and sign up for their newsletter for updates, click here.
Coming 2018, this app will gather all us geeks, who have read the books too many times to count, together outside and start searching for the next hippogriff or niffler. It will allow us to all imagine that Hagrid actually told us that we were wizards.
All GIFs courtesy of Giphy.