What a massive day yesterday was for every Harry Potter fan in the world. They got to celebrate the birthdays of both the Harry Potter series (36th) and its creator J.K. Rowling (51st) yesterday. To add to that, a script book for Harry Potter: The Cursed Child was also released, but what stole the show was the ‘confirmation(!)’ that ‘Harry Potter Go‘ is coming out.
Niantic to develop Harry Potter Go?
It is also rumored that Harry Potter Go will be developed by Niantic, but the news can’t be verified yet as the Pokemon Go developers haven’t responded to queries regarding this development.
However, in an interview with IGN, Niantic mentioned that a Harry Potter game could be a reality. The article featuring the interview was later deleted from the IGN website but it definitely put some weight in this matter.
We have acquired the rights for the app. The demand for this title was absolutely insane, so we figured we’d give it a shot. If we’re lucky we might see a launch by early 2017, but it’s hard to tell this early in the project.
We want to do something with schools of witchcraft and wizardry, similar to pokéstops in Pokémon GO… but no promises. That’s all I can say.
A petition, asking for a Harry Potter app, which has already received 40,000 signatures has also added fuel to the fire about a Harry Potter Go game being made.
In the description segment, the petition creators wrote the following:
“The possibilities are endless. In a Harry Potter augmented reality game, you could cast spells in real life. Accio Firebolt! And have a wizard duel with your friends – expelliarmus could disable their app for a few seconds!
“In honour of the new movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, you could search for magical creatures, like hippogriffs and dragons, and goblins, and acromantulas. Follow the spiders Ron. The app could be a fantastic (pun intended) promotion for the movie.With Harry Potter Go, you could search for the seven Horcruxes, and then for swords, and basilisk fangs to destroy them. Someone get a Time-Turner and make this game yesterday!”
Niantic isn’t having a great time with Pokemon Go and it sounds a little far-fetched that they will agree to make another game involving a huge franchise. It definitely sounds like a recipe for disaster, but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t want it to happen.
Harry Potter’s world is the perfect premise for an AR game with virtually limitless possibilities about what the player can do.