This video game is Quidditch minus Harry Potter and the weird rules

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Broomstick League is what Quidditch would look like as an esport

Harry Potter fans are having a renaissance of electronic entertainment thanks to Harry Potter Wizards Unite. While we're still waiting on anything to come of that leaked open-world RPG, they can look forward to playing some non-regulation Quidditch next year thanks to Broomstick League, a game coming in 2020 from the studio behind Slender: The Arrival.

Alright, maybe the fact that these developers also made a horror game about that tall meme guy isn't enough to get you excited about their approach to not-Quidditch, but the trailer might be. It's a distinctly Rocket-League-ian take on the preferred sport of witchcraft and wizardry: the two teams are composed of 1, 2, 3, or 4 players each (instead of seven) and the central goal is to take the ball and put it through your opponents' hoop (not to go back and forth for a while over points that barely matter until the Snitch comes out and Harry Potter gets to hog all the glory by catching it and winning the game). Quidditch-as-written is a very questionable piece of game design, OK?

Broomstick League expands the familiar formula with some light flight mechanics - like building up speed by dive bombing toward the ground - and letting every player cast spells to knock around opponents or teleport across the battlefield. You'll be able to customize the looks of your magical athlete and fit them with nice new broomsticks and wands as you progress through in-game leagues.

As it stands now, Broomstick League is "coming soon" to Steam Early Access with a full release planned for 9 to 12 months after that. Barring the sudden and unexpected arrival of Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup 2, this is probably the best thing that fans of virtual broomstick-based sports are gonna get.

See how the cinematic universe stacks up with our listing of the best Harry Potter movies. 

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.