Harry Potter: Wizards Unite released on iPhone and Android: Hands on

Niantic, the company that built the hit game Pokemon Go, launched its new game this week based on another popular franchise.

It’s called Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and, like Pokemon, it uses augmented reality to place digital objects, such as monsters and popular characters from the “Harry Potter” books, into the real world.

It’s a big next step for Niantic, which spun off from Google’s parent company Alphabet and, earlier this year, raised an additional $245 million at a $4 billion valuation. Niantic is said to have generated nearly $2 billion from Pokemon Go in its first two years, according to research from Sensor Tower. With a potential new big hit on Niantic’s hands, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is a game to watch.

The game is free to play and is available on iOS and Android, which means pretty much anyone with a phone can play it. And like Pokemon Go, Niantic stands to make money off of in-game items that players can buy, which range in price from $1.69 to $34.99.

The game appears to be an early success, too. It already has more than 500 positive reviews with an average score above four stars on the Apple App Store,…