While it seemed obvious Pokemon Go (Free) would do well, I’m not sure anyone expected the title to be a straight up global phenomenon. This trouble here is that when a game hits that hard, it’s typically impossible to top. We’ve seen countless mobile developers with one-off titles that do incredibly well, only to see sequels and subsequent titles struggle to find their footing. Well, Niantic’s next title might have the magic it takes to duplicate the success of Pokemon Go by leaning on an IP which might have an even more excited fanbase: Harry Potter.

It’s titled Harry Potter: Wizards United, and the game is launching in 2018. Details beyond that are few few and far between, but considering Pokemon Go was little more than a Ingress (Free) reskin at first, it seems reasonable to expect something vaguely similar in the Potterverse. It seems reasonable to expect players will be able to choose their house, then potentially engage in wizard battles to take over territory? Or something else entirely? The Harry Potter universe is vast, and there’s tons of different directions they could take an augmented reality game in.

One thing that’s amusing about today’s news is that a Harry Potter Niantic game has been rumored forever now, snowballing to the point of even having a Snopes article, which as of this writing still says is false. Whenever it’s released, and regardless of what you do, Wizards Unite will be massive. If you don’t follow Potter fandom, the extent people will go to for … anything Harry Potter is at times unbelievable. My local town had a Harry Potter event that the library put on for kids. Some Harry Potter mommy blog mistook it as an “official" city-wide festival. People drove for hours to line up to buy $5 tickets, which then were scalped on Craigslist for well over $50.

Wizards Unite will likely break the internet just as bad as Pokemon Go did.

[via TechCrunch]