Since I have already mused about J.K. Rowling and her transformation into a anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, this article is largely going to focus on the game, how it plays, and whether or not it’s a largely original story or has her grubby fingerprints all over it. Hogwarts Legacy dropped to critical acclaim and hatred yesterday, but people received their Deluxe Edition copies on the 7th, if they preordered it. The game has dominated headlines ever since, so is it any good? Let’s dive in and find out.
One of the first things Hogwarts Legacy does is drop you straight into the world and familiarize you with the main setting and characters involved. You’re a fifth-year student transferring into Hogwarts, a rarity to be sure. While traveling to Hogwarts with the instructor tasked with bringing you up to speed, you come across the villainous goblin Ranrok, who is seeking something that seems to involve you, even though you don’t fully understand why. This leads to a wild fight in Gringotts and traveling by port-key to different unknown places, and this is all before you even arrive at Hogwarts to begin the game. To say this game captures your attention out of the gate would be a tremendous understatement.
Of course, once you get to Hogwarts there is the matter of the Sorting Hat. If you were wondering, yes, the story very much changes depending on the house you’re slotted into. I created a good character and a bad character, and aside from some of the basics, my experience has been wildly different with each one. That’s not me saying the game changes dramatically, the levels are still the levels, but your interactions, house-mates, and opportunities very much depend on the type of character you present yourself as throughout the game. Simply put, if you want to be a dick, the game will happily let you and it will play out much differently than if you were a decent person.
For me, this is part of the pull of this game. Why would I want four relatively similar experiences if I were to replay the game from the perspective of each house. Part of what sold the Hogwarts experience for people was the very idea that these houses appeal to different personalities. A game done well would reflect those personalities and provide distinctly different experiences with those personalities and this is a game done well. Your Slytherin experience is not going to be the same as a Hufflepuff experience unless you select a Slytherin and play it as a Hufflepuff. If you’re actually playing the game as a Slytherin would likely approach things, you get a vastly different experience and that’s pretty cool. I haven’t had enough time to beat the game with both characters, but my experiences have been pretty different so far.
So, obviously the game was written well, but does it play well? Yes! It plays very well. Controls are simple and smooth. You’re allowed to slot four spells at once, with an additional four spells being tied to the directional buttons on the controller. It gives you eight spells to work with and that’s without getting into your ability to combo spells together for more deadly attacks. The game introduces this early in your first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. The instructor, who has some pretty sage advice by the way, teaches you to couple a basic attack with Levioso and then has you demonstrate in a duel.
But it’s not just the way the game plays, it’s the overall feel and look, too. I can’t count the number of times I’ve walked past objects knowing they did something or were part of some puzzle, but I just didn’t have enough of the pieces yet to see the whole thing. You get that general feeling just walking around the castle because you know in your soul that this game is filled to the brim with secret passages, hidden quests, and Easter Eggs, meant to be found only by those willing to put in the work. If a castle is supposed to inspire awe and mystery, Hogwarts in Hogwarts Legacy does exactly that.
Whether you are chasing down keys that open hidden chests or solving magical treasure hunts with other students, Hogwarts Legacy seems built on the idea that hidden magical experiences should be at the key of everyone’s experiences, and they are. The game delivers a sense of wonderment and awe while wandering around the castle grounds and the different areas the game provides and you are definitely rewarded and encouraged for exploring. Speaking of exploring and gameplay, what about the locations within the game?
I refuse to spoil all of the secrets for you, but Hogwarts and Hogsmeade are not the only two locations players are allowed to explore. The areas are well-defined and each have their own look and feel. Famous locations from the books like Ollivanders, Three Broomsticks, Zonko’s Gift Shop, the Room of Requirement, Gringotts and Honeydukes are all present in game, even if Quidditch is infamously not a part of this release. For an introductory game into the Wizarding World of Magic, this game has about as much as you could possibly add in without things feeling gratuitous or overloaded.
If this game is the set up for a more densely packed sequel or line of games, the sky really is the limit and it makes sense why the game was released on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X first, as the graphical and visual content required to bring this vision to life is definitely in the next-generation category. If you’re going to play this game, try to do so on a next-generation platform, if you’re able. As it’s the only version out, it’s impossible to compare it to the previous generation and Switch versions, but I imagine the load time on the older systems will be through the roof, given the small load times for some of the game’s content.
The downgrade the other versions will receive is probably the perfect segue into the negatives portion of this game. Some of the quests can feel a bit tedious and repetitive, but speaking strictly for myself, that was largely offset by my hunger to explore the area and doing these requests as a means of exploring them. The limited inventory space is another problem I have, especially when I discovered that picking one outfit and sticking with it severely neuters your character. It wouldn’t be the worst idea to make this more obvious and logical in the game’s early going.
If we are being honest, a lot of what you could knock about Hogwarts Legacy are things that most major franchises do with their initial launch. Much of the tedium is removed from later versions, replaced instead with more side quests and relationships. In other words, the mistakes made by Hogwarts Legacy aren’t so egregious that they dig into my enjoyment of the game on the whole. Between unfinished products being rushed to market and games being abandoned if they don’t instantly strike gold, Hogwarts Legacy has found a way to put out not only a finished product, but also one that gave the fans what they wanted with the support it deserves. That’s a win in my book.
There’s no denying the effort that went into this game. It genuinely feels as though Portkey Games went out of their way to use Rowling as little as possible for obvious reasons, but that they were able to do so successfully and without sacrificing anything that makes this franchise great, even if its creator is a piece of work. If you can accept that this was a Hogwarts story told by completely different people and is as far removed from Rowling as it can get while still being her intellectual property, then you’re gonna have at least 100 hours of fun with Hogwarts Legacy.
Rating: 9.25/10
Rowling: 0/10
P.S.
Also, I see what you did with Sirona in Hogsmeade. I picked up what you were putting down. Very well done, Portkey Games. Very well done. I really hope to read the full story of how that was pulled off one day. It might be the largest middle-finger to someone I’ve ever seen, short of that student who brought an actual typewriter into class because their professor banned laptops in class.
A salute to whomever pulled Sirona the Bartender off.
Kane Webb is an entertainment journalist for @BSO and @TheMarvelReport. He also writes about the USC Trojans for @AthlonSports and has been featured on @FanSided, @Scout, @Rivals, the Bakersfield Californian, Wisconsin State Journal, and much more. You can follow him on Twitter: @FightOnTwist