Hogwarts Legacy
The best Potter game yet, its scope and detail is astounding.
$89.95 | PC, PS4/5, XB1/S/X, Switch, Android | hogwartslegacy.com
I was over 20 hours into Hogwarts Legacy before it revealed that, on top of being an expansive RPG with skill trees, wizard combat, crafting, environmental puzzles and loads of sidequests, it’s also a quaint home decorating game with a splash of zoo management. This is a much larger game than I think anyone was anticipating and as I’ve completed the main quest and dozens of sidequests over 50 hours, I’m still surprised by how good each individual element is.
It suffers from a meandering start and distracting technical issues, but once I was set free to explore the entirety of Hogwarts and miles of countryside surrounding it, I enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy in the same ways I did The Witcher 3 or Red Dead Redemption 2: moseying across a convincingly rendered world at my own pace, letting myself disappear into a character I’m invested in.
Like those open world classics I just mentioned, Hogwarts Legacy is a game you’ve probably played before, but also a rarity: a big-budget RPG attempting to bottle up all of the prestige, splendour and
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expectations of a massive media property into a seamless sandbox. For the most part, it nails it. This is Harry Potter’s Arkham Asylum moment – a game telling its own story in an established world, unshackled by the restrictive deadlines and creative boundaries of a movie tie-in.
Magical balance
Hogwarts Legacy isn’t written by JK Rowling or directly adapted from her stories. In fact, Warner Bros and Portkey Games (the game publishing arm of Harry Potter properties) go as far as to say that she was “not involved in the creation of the game” at all. Still, it’s built upon the world that she created and inherits some of its problems, particularly its portrayal of goblins and house elves.
Still, Avalanche Software have built a rich, almost annoyingly detailed world that routinely exceeds its source material in terms of quality and inclusivity. Hogwarts Legacy is full of simple but harmonious systems that keep things fun at all times.
Wizard duels are a unique take on
ranged combat where no aiming is required but spacing, dodging, and countering is key. Think Batman with cooldowns (and more murder). Your clothes, cloaks, scarves, facewears and hats have Destiny-like offensive/defensive stats, but you can just set your cosmetic look to whatever you want. You also do a whole lot of talking, often with two or three dialogue choices that express a chosen personality within bounds (but only rarely seem to influence the outcome of interactions). I was especially surprised by the Room of Requirement: a personalised living space for your wizard with an almost Animal Crossing-level of decoration options. Eventually, it gets a lot bigger.
Being there
The single most impressive aspect of Hogwarts Legacy is Hogwarts itself. Developers love to describe their games as “living, breathing worlds” but it’s difficult to think of any better way to characterise the titular castle. You can’t walk ten feet without a part of Hogwarts castle coming
MVP of goes to Deek, the very nice house elf that tends the Room of Requirement.