The shadow of Harry Potter will always loom large over the Wizarding World. His exploits to defeat Voldemort, and the friends that stood at his side, are all iconic things. Much like Star Wars, it will be very hard to avoid anything to do with these characters or their history. So how do you make a game based on such a famous franchise without turning it into a giant piece of fan service?
The answer is: very, very carefully and with love and respect for the franchise and its world. Let’s get this out of the way: Hogwarts Legacy is a giant piece of fan service, but it’s also an excellent RPG that will suck away the hours. Developer Avalanche Software has succeeded with flying colours in creating something that both honours history while writing a new story for fans to read, or, in this case, play.
Set during the late 1800s, Hogwarts Legacy is a narrative-driven, action RPG and open-world game that throws you into the shoes of a new student joining Hogwarts in the fifth year. So you’re a little behind everyone else and will need to play catch up. You’re not entirely clueless as to the workings of magic as a coach ride to Hogwarts for your enrolment suffers a breakdown by a dragon, beginning your first lessons in the art of wizarding as you’re forced to survive and make your way to the illustrious school. Right away you’re thrust into a battle between wizards and goblins over an ancient form of magic that, fortuitously, you can see and wield. So it’s up to you to save the Wizarding World from goblins, Dark wizards and dastardly evil while keeping up with your schoolwork.
Hogwarts plays like an open-world third-person RPG, replete with all the trappings of the genre. As much as there is a focus on exploration and item collecting, the game truly excels on its RPG side, taking you for a deep dive into a simulacrum of Hogwart’s life without going full-on simulation.
You’ll spend your days going to classes to learn new spells and how to create potions, along with interacting with other Hogwarts students for side quests. The game avoids making it a full-on simulation by tying classes into character progression, letting you take on a new class of homework just before you’re going to need a specific spell or skill to further the plot. I enjoyed these sections more than I was expecting to as they do a good job of filling out the Hogwarts fantasy of going there.
The games side quests are designed to do a couple of things, such as introducing you to new, interesting characters, though the main objective is in unlocking new cosmetic customisation options for you while getting you to explore new areas of Hogwarts, and Hogmeads, that you might have missed. And believe me, it’s very easy to miss locations in the maze that is Hogwarts. While the side quests don’t really evolve beyond the typical go here, fetch that, kill that style of RPG questing, they’re so wonderfully managed and voiced that it’s always worth your time to do them.
One aspect that I really think was wonderfully handled, is those side quests and the game’s challenges. Instead of tying them into getting achievements, each one will unlock new cosmetic customisation options, whether that’s new outfits or wand handles. It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to do everything in a game since most collectathons really boil down to either unlocking some achievement or satisfying your innate OCD to collect ’em all, Hogwarts made it worth my while to hunt down the game’s various codex pages or killing a certain amount of creatures. It’s a system more games would do well to embrace.
All the spells you learn can be used to solve the game’s world and area puzzles but are also used for combat. And the game’s combat system is fun, meaty and challenging. Leviosa can be used to levitate opponents who are then wide open for a barrage of basic casts. The system really comes into its own when you learn how to use combos and mix and match the spells to do what you want. Levitate someone, pull them towards you and set them on fire, this is just one of the many combos available to you. The system goes deeper by making certain enemies only vulnerable after using a specific spell and by letting other enemies shield themselves. Shields and spells are colour coded so you have to use the correct colour spell to shatter a shield before you can do damage. There’s a block that also acts as a counter for your shield and you can also dodge roll. Where the game RPG side feels more like a deep dive into student life, well the life of a student needing to save the Wizarding World at any rate, combat is incredibly challenging. Most of the time you’ll be facing off against multiple enemy types who can employ the same spells against you along with melee attackers and teleporting attacks. I’ve died more than I care to admit in a game that I was expecting to be somewhat of a breeze. Difficulty aside, combat is fun and generates a wonderful sense of power, especially if you have rumble effects on your controller turned on.
Visually Hogwarts Legacy is an absolute treat. The world surrounding Hogwarts is beautifully realised and full of places to explore and side quests to embark on. But the crowning achievement is Hogwarts itself. It’s an absolutely stunning piece of gaming architecture. From the hundreds of portraits adorning its walls to the changing architecture to the many columns and vaulted ceilings featuring stunning texture and material work along with impressively geometrically modelled detail, Hogwarts is breath-taking. It does an absolutely stellar job of placing you in the venerable school and is the closest you’ll get to enrolling there.
Hogwarts comes with three display options if you’re running it on a standard television without higher frame rates or VRR. You’ve got Performance, Fidelity and Fidelity + RT. Performance rolls at 60fps and has some noticeable visual drops in foliage and materials but still looks fantastic. Fidelity runs at 30fps and is absolutely gorgeous, coming in with high-quality cube maps and SS reflections. Fidelity + RT is Fidelity mode with ray-tracing. It runs at 30fps and showcases a mixture of real-time reflections and SSR. The lighting difference is stunning, as are the reflections and just how much visual panache it adds to the scene. On launch, this mode had performance problems though, with frame dips, stutter and noticeable lighting and reflection solutions loading in around you. Since launch, this mode has been patched for a better frame rate and performance overall but I haven’t had enough time with the latest patch to determine whether or not performance degrades the longer you play with it enabled, as it did on launch. Interestingly, each mode comes with a switch to turn off frame rate limits but I haven’t tried this out either.
With a great story, excellent gameplay, involved and challenging combat and one of the most stunningly realised game worlds around, Hogwarts Legacy isn’t just the best way to live out your Harry Potter fantasy, it’s a stunning video game in its own right. And one that I can’t recommend enough.
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and Series S, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One,
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