Hogwarts Legacy
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Hogwarts Legacy is a 2023 action role-playing game developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Bros. Games under its Portkey Games label. The game is set in the Wizarding World universe, based on the Harry Potter novels, and was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2023.
Taking place before the events of the novels, the player controls a student at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 1899 who learns to wield different magical abilities and objects, aided by other students and professors.
Hogwarts Legacy is Avalanche's first release since their acquisition by Warner Bros. in 2017. Development began in 2018. Announced in 2020, the game was subject to delays, first to 2022 and later to its final release date. Before its announcement, pre-release gameplay footage was leaked onto the internet in 2018.
Plot
Hogwarts Legacy is set in 1899 and follows a student starting at Hogwarts in the fifth year. The player character, who holds the key to an "ancient secret that threatens to tear the wizarding world apart", is capable of manipulating a mysterious ancient magic, and will need to help uncover why this forgotten magic has suddenly made a resurgence and the ones that are simultaneously trying to harness it.
Why It Deserves the House Cup
- Spectacular graphics, with an insane amount of textures and attention to detail, so much so that you will feel like you're in Hogwarts.
- While not the first game to do this, this game lets you explore Hogwarts to its fullest potential, from the school itself to Hogsmeade, and the Forbidden Forest.
- This is added by the fact that no Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts film was coming out which would force the developers to rush the game to generate hype.
- You can customize your character, not just by looks, but also by their name, tone of voice, and Hogwarts House.
- You have over 30 spells to use in the game, all from Harry Potter lore. You can even unlock the Crucio and Imperio curses and the most famous spell in the game, Avada Kedavra!
- Decent voice acting for the most part, especially Simon Pegg as Headmaster Phineas Black.
- Memorable characters including Slytherin Sebastian Swallow, Professor Matilda Wealsey, and of course, Phineas Black.
- Amazing combat. You can perform a wide variety of attacks using the spells you learn and can combine them to your greatest power. You can also wield ancient magic, which serves as your focus meter and can be used to unleash a devasting spell that can one-hit kill your enemies or deal significant damage.
- Outside of combat, you can use the spells you've learned to explore other areas of Hogwarts you haven't visited yet.
- The story, while cliche, is still very interesting.
- Meta-commentary: This game ultimately saved Avalanche Software as that company was shut down by Disney from the failure of Disney Infinity, many players rejoice it as a return to form and a welcome back from the studio.
- The Nintendo Switch version is very impressive given the fact that the game is demanding on PCs where it's required to run on minimum with high specs along with the port running at a constant 30 FPS framerate the majority of the time.
Muggle-Loving Qualities
- The game isn't really hard as you frequently get legendary gear if you play strategically.
- While the voice acting is passable, it isn't going to be memorable as almost everyone has British accents. The only character who stands out from his voice acting is Simon Pegg.
- Choices don't matter throughout here.
- The story, while decent, is your generic "chosen one who could save the world" story.
- At times, the game gets repetitive as you will be finding field guides around Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and the Forbidden Forest. The quests, aside from the main and the side quests where the rewards are learning new spells, are also repetitive as you go to one area, do what the giver of the quest tells you to, and head back to the giver for a reward.
- Because of hardware limitations, the Switch, PS4, and Xbox One versions of the game suffer from low texture polygons making the game look as if it was running on a very low-spec PC.
- Additionally, the Switch version suffered from performance issues and yes, now each area has a loading screen, which is similar to Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
Reception
According to review aggregator Metacritic, Hogwarts Legacy received "generally favorable" reviews for its PC and PlayStation 5 versions, and "universal acclaim" for its Xbox Series X version. IGN praised the various student and professor characters as "memorable" and "indispensable", saying that they overcame the weakness of the main storyline and technical performance to provide the "Hogwarts fantasy". PCGamesN enjoyed the puzzles and mysteries of Hogwarts, but felt the game fell short when it came to the side quests, describing them as "just simple fetch jobs, with a few enemies to slay on the way". PC Gamer liked the Legacy's take on Wizard Duels, but wrote that the game could have used some more technical polish, stating: "Most noticeable are the brief, yet frequent pauses at the doors of Hogwarts while the game is loading whatever's on the other side".
Many fans agree that this is the best Harry Potter game to date.
Controversy
Hogwarts Legacy became a subject of contention in response to Rowling's controversial views on transgender people. Many in opposition to Rowling called for a boycott of the game as a means of showing solidarity with the transgender community, and to impede the financial benefits she would receive from its release. Avalanche and Warner Bros. denied Rowling's involvement in the game's development. The team also introduced a trans-inclusive character creator and the franchise's first transgender character, Sirona Ryan. Responding to the controversy, the studio added that "the team felt that it was very important to create a game that is representative of the rich and diverse world of Harry Potter as well as the groups of people who play games, which includes the LGBTQIA+ community. Although that was argued as tone-deaf to the public. Regardless, the boycott largely failed, as some content creators and streamers were criticized and harassed by others opposed to Rowling's views for promoting and broadcasting the game. There was even a website that detected if the viewer's favorite Twitch streamer played the game, though that largely failed. Despite the efforts to boycott the game, its viewership on the live-streaming service Twitch peaked at a record-breaking 1.27 million concurrent viewers on February 7. This made Hogwarts Legacy the most-watched single-player game of all time by peak viewers on the platform.