Niantic announced today that Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is coming out in 2019. The location-based mobile game will be the company’s follow-up to the giant hit Pokémon Go. Niantic also released a new teaser trailer for the augmented reality app, which you can watch above.
Niantic announced Wizards Unite just over a year ago. At the time, the studio was planning for a 2018 release date. As we got closer to the end of the year with little new info on the game in sight, that release window seemed unlikely. Now Niantic has confirmed that its Harry Potter project is releasing in 2019.
Pokémon Go became a sensation when it launched in 2016, drawing millions of players and mainstream media attention with its real-world augmented reality gameplay. Although that initial burst of insane popularity died down, the game is still popular. Player numbers were at their highest this summer since that initial boon.
Pokémon is a giant franchise, and Harry Potter gives Niantic another media icon to work with. The Potter empire reigns over books, movies, theme parks, and (lots and lots of) merchandise. The next movie in the series, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, comes out on November 16. According to Entertainment Weekly, the franchise is worth about $25 billion.
Niantic got into the location-based game business when it launched Ingress in 2012. An updated version, Ingress Prime, released earlier this month.