Hogwarts Legacy, developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Bros. Games under their Portkey Games banner, was one of the most anticipated game of the year. Information was first leaked in 2018 and the game was officially announced in 2020. As the time of this article, the game has sold more than 12 million copies in the first few weeks, breaking Warner Bros. sales records.
Possible spoilers ahead.
J.K. Rowling Controversy
It’s hard to go online without knowing that this game is extremely divisive, due to J.K Rowling’s views on transgender people. Game director Alan Tew addressed those challenges in a recent IGN article:
Tew states “there are challenges in every game and we know that’s a diverse audience. For us, it’s making sure that the audience, who always dreamed of having this game, had the opportunity to feel welcomed back. That they have a home here and that it’s a good place to tell their story.”
What to expect from Hogwarts Legacy
Hogwarts Legacy takes place in the 1800’s, a century before Harry Potter, and is an action RPG set in and around Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Your time at Hogwarts has the player exploring many familiar places like Hogsmeade and The Forbidden Forest. A few of the many activities players will do while at Hogwarts is attend classes, breed magical beasts, explore bandit camps, and investigate caves and treasure vaults.
Hogwarts Legacy Story
As an avid RPG fan and even bigger Harry Potter fan, I was excited to experience the wizarding world of Hogwarts Legacy. The game begins with you receiving an acceptance letter as a new 5th-year student at Hogwarts. You meet Professor Fig, tasked with accompanying you to school. Your journey doesn’t go smoothly and you soon find yourself in a Gringotts vault via portkey. As you fight to escape the vault, you realize you are capable of seeing ancient magic, one of the game’s main plot devices. Eventually, you arrive back at Hogwarts in time to be sorted into one of four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin. You can leave it to chance through a series of questions or pick which house you prefer manually.
With help from Professor Fig you learn about the game’s main two villains: dark wizard Victor Rookwood and the goblin extremist Ranrok, who are trying to find the hidden source of the ancient magic. You’re tasked with discovering more information and stop Rookwood and Ranrok from succeeding.
Combat and Graphics
Hogwarts Legacy’s combat is surprisingly deep and engaging, with different spell combinations to try that make the fight flow very satisfying. Some enemies you come across will have a type of colored shield that the player must break by using a spell of the same color in order to deal damage to them. An enemy with a red shield would need a flame spell like Incendio for their shield to break before using any other spells, and so on.
Hogwarts Legacy offers two graphics modes: performance or fidelity. Performance runs at a higher frame rate but you lose some lighting and texture. Fidelity runs at a lower frame rate but has great lighting and texture. I played mostly on performance favoring higher frame rate and had no issues. The game has great visual detail with a realistic graphics style.
Soundtrack and Game Options
Hogwarts Legacy did manage to nail the soundtrack. The music felt big budget and on par with the Harry Potter films, something I would continue to listen to. I played as the female protagonist, and the voice over work for the protagonists and other characters were very high quality.
The game offers the standard options you expect from a big budget game, with customizable controls and a wide variety of accessibility options. It does, however, lack an auto tapping option which does become extremely important in the final boss battle.
Character Creation
Hogwarts Legacy‘s character creation offers a handful of presets to choose from with very little adjustments. Every character’s face and nose all look relatively the same. You can adjust skin color and pick from more presets for hair and eyebrows. You can choose from a couple different voice options and adjust the tone.
Issues and Final Thoughts
After my playthrough of Hogwarts Legacy the nostalgia starts to lessen around the 20-hour mark and flaws of the game become apparent. The main quest is your typical hero saves the world with nothing to keep the player guessing. There are giant and lifeless common rooms, and the lock picking mini-game is busy work. I picked more locks than I can remember; aren’t I a wizard? The Merlin Trials, the only way to upgrade your inventory storage, is more busy work with easy mini-game type challenges. A nice feature is all gear you find is able to transmog (the ability to replace the appearance of your armor), making your character fashionable as well as strong.
Exploring these familiar places did offer some great memorable moments. The story starts strong but gets lost with typical lack-luster hero’s journey tropes. With very little difference between the four houses, there isn’t much replayability. Hogwarts Legacy might satisfy your wizarding craving if you’re able to manage your expectations.
Hogwarts Legacy released Feb 10, 2023, on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
PS4 and Xbox One versions will be released April 4, 2023 and the Nintendo Switch version will be released July 25, 2023.
