The big budget Harry Potter role-playing game fans have been dreaming of is finally here, but does it live up to expectations?
For such a significant franchise, games based on Harry Potter have had a rough ride with critics. Cursed to adhere to the films’ launch windows, their development rushed to meet arbitrary deadlines, they also suffered from the traditional malaise of all movie licenses (or at least those from previous generations): with so much of their budget allocated to buying the rights to the IP, actually making the games becomes a secondary concern.
Add to that J. K. Rowling’s increasingly toxic reputation and despite the billions in revenues it takes from other sources, this is a series that’s never quite felt at home in games. Until now that is. Hogwarts Legacy, with its big budget and historical setting – that removes it from the limitations imposed by the books and their well-worn character arcs – is a completely different proposition.
Set in the 1870s, just before Dumbledore’s birth, this is a full-on Harry Potter role-playing game. You play as a young witch or wizard who, unusually, has been drafted into Hogwarts in the fifth year. That means you’ve got a lot of catching up to do in terms of learning about spells, potions, and defence against the dark arts. It also marks your character as someone a little bit special.
Despite initially not knowing your expelliarmus from your wingardium leviosa, you can see and wield ancient magic that remains well beyond the reach of the rank and file at Hogwarts. This unusual ability sets in motion the mystery that powers the plot and provides you with some amusingly spectacular finishing moves.
Arriving at Hogwarts as a senior, the first order of business is to meet the sorting hat and find out which house you belong in. A couple of questions and it’s made up its mind, although in a break with tradition, if you don’t fancy the house you’re given you can simply request a transfer to the one you prefer. Hogwarts Legacy isn’t about to force anyone to be a Hufflepuff if they’d really rather be in Gryffindor.
In this pre-Dumbledore era, you’ll find the school ruled by the iron fist of headmaster Phineas Black, played with wonderfully embittered zeal by an unrecognisable Simon Pegg. Between his angry demeanour, political machinations, and a dark union between the nasty local goblin horde and Victor Rookwood – descendant of an early Hogwarts professor – you’ve got your work cut out for you.
Fortunately, you have allies. The first comes in the form of your warm-hearted mentor, Professor Fig, and secondly there’s the Hogwarts students you meet, both in your own house and beyond. Friendships are forged by helping them with their problems, which involves a great deal of running around Hogwarts castle and the wider landscape – which in this game goes a lot further than the wizards-only village of Hogsmeade.
Lifting the clouds from the map as you explore, Zelda: Breath Of The Wild-style, the land around Hogwarts takes in the Forbidden Forest, various crumbling towers and ruins, and numerous villages, cave systems, and goblin encampments. It looks nothing short of spectacular, its rendering of the Scottish countryside looking gorgeously craggy and varied, even if the total absence of rain must be something to do with all that magic.
At any time, you’re free to explore on foot or take to the skies on your broomstick or hippogriff. The sense of freedom, and the vastness of the countryside, is inspiring, although it can initially be dangerous, riddled as it is with poachers, giant spiders, and murderous goblins. At least to start with, many of them are much higher level than you, making them almost impossible to defeat until much later.
Learning to use your wand is key to survival, and you’ll soon recognise the different colours of shield your opponents’ use, and which spells to deploy to get past them. That can mean using levioso to lift enemies into the air, or torching them with a fire spell, before unleashing the damage they richly deserve. It’s fun and has a reasonable amount of depth, even if the relatively paltry range of enemies is a bit of a bore, and battles against trolls can be drawn-out trigger finger-aching affairs. Although at least the environmental puzzles are varied and interesting.
You’ll also be doing quite a bit of collecting. Amongst the cornucopia of collectibles are house tokens unlocked with flying keys, that need to be swatted into their locks; Gobstones hidden in the rafters and on top of walls; pages of your students’ field guide hidden in myriad locations; and magical beasts to be abducted, sorry, ‘rescued’ from the wild using your vacuum-style nab-sack.
While each of those tasks works discretely, what impresses is how well some are embedded in their own ecosystems. When you save animals, your initial motivation is to rescue them from poachers, but you soon unlock a vivarium where you can let them run free. You can also feed them and give them a good brushing, which coaxes them into dropping ingredients used in brewing potions.
Rescue more and you can get spare beasts re-homed, a service for which you’re paid a handsome fee. Later on, you can start a captive breeding programme, plucking male and female specimens from the countryside to husband, giving you access to some of the game’s more expensive and esoteric potion ingredients – and creating a satisfyingly useful mini-game.
And that’s just one distraction. There are broomstick time trials; the Crossed Wands underground duelling society; the summoner’s court, where you use spells to pull giant spheres into high scoring zones; and even a quiz from a fellow pupil about the lore of Hogwarts and its founders, which gets progressively more abstruse as you progress.
That combination of lush scenery and apparently limitless things to do within it, lends proceedings a spark that’s long been missing from Harry Potter games. Freed form the baggage of the original canon, you’ll still bump into Weasleys and various antecedents of modern era Hogwarts, but the story is never beholden to them, which is a refreshing change of pace and something the Star Wars franchise ought to be watching with keen interest.
They may not exactly be reinventing the genre, but role-playing elements are equally well judged. Levelling up adds hit points and talent points, which you can spend on perks affecting spellcasting, potions, and stealth.
There’s also a loot cycle of new equipment, which you’ll continually be swapping out as you find items with better stats. The unintentionally hilarious side effect of this is that your character’s usually dressed like an absolute loon, with a brightly coloured hat, Victorian sunglasses, and various sparkly scarves, overcoats, and bizarre porcelain face masks, all in the name of upgrades.
Voice acting is consistently good, running the full gamut of British regional accents. It’s all immaculately recorded and acted, and even with the huge quantity of exposition the game demands, it rarely feels like a chore to sit through.
The PlayStation 5’s adaptive triggers and haptics are used everywhere, from menu selections to spell casting, and come into their own during lockpicking, where you can feel the lock’s cylinders snicking gratifyingly into place. This is representative of the high level of polish throughout. It shouldn’t be impressive that a game has no bugs in it, but in a post-Cyberpunk 2077 era it’s like a breath of fresh air to play something without being yanked out of the experience by constant, annoying glitches.
Unfettered from movie release schedules and the confines of the novels, Hogwarts Legacy is an entertaining and immersive visit to the world’s favourite magic school. While respectful to its source material, it uses its extra leeway to grand effect; the world’s beauty and multitude of side quests and distractions giving it a robust quality that’s been sorely lacking in previous attempts. If you’re a Potter fan, this is finally the game you’ve always wanted.
Hogwarts Legacy review summary
In Short: A truly wizard RPG, whose historical setting frees it from the limitations of the books and films, with an open world experience that entertains no matter how much you care about the source material.
Pros: Stunning views and a sizeable open world. Cleverly refined role-playing elements, interesting and varied puzzles, and endless collectibles. Sky high production values and no bugs.
Cons: Little in the way of new ideas, compared to the genre as a whole. Broomstick flight controls are awkward and dressing up purely to improve your stats looks silly. J. K. Rowling.
Score: 8/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £64.99
Publisher: Warner Bros. Games
Developer: Avalanche Software
Release Date: 10th February 2023*
Age Rating: 12
*Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on 4th April, Nintendo Switch on 25th July
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