Hogwarts Legacy

Platforms: PC
Reviewed on: PC
Reviewer: Maiyannah Bishop
Review Play-Time: h
Developer: Avalanche Games
Publisher: Warner Bros Games
Released: 2023-02-10
Review Published: 2023-05-25

Hogwarts Legacy is an open world role-playing game developed by Avalanche Games and published by Warner Brothers Games. This is perhaps one of the most-requested reviews I've ever had, from a variety of subscribers and readers whom, amidst a flurry of a controversy that a marketing department quite obviously fuelled to try to get sales, wanted to know about the actual videogame, and not what the masses of social media thought of JK Rowling. Rowling is the now-fairly-infamous writer of the Harry Potter books, quite well known for her gauche and backwards views on the issue of transgender rights. Let me put a stake in the ground here, since it will invariably come up in discussion of the review: one of my two partners is a transgender woman, and if you think I have a problem with that, you are very, very wrong. She is, was, and always will be, more than woman enough for me, and I consider myself blessed that I have the relationship we do. I feel that the review I have to write here is one that I approach with some trepediation. There's two camps when it comes to Hogwarts Legacy, those whom either agree with Rowling and defend the games existence irrespective of its quality - or don't care, and those whom want it to be lambasted because of Rowling's abhorrent views. I abscribe to neither view and neither side: several works we crib from regularly had abhorrent writers and I feel we can judge the game on its own merits, irrespective of Rowling's lack of them as a person. HP Lovecraft, for instance, is infamous for his racism and yet many authors, artists, and game developers regularly take inspiration from his works.

This detached examination of the game separate from its author is an approach which does not benefit the game, however, because while there's enough nostalgia here for Harry Potter fans whom just desired interaction with that world, the game is tepid, offers absolutely no challenge, and the actual open world is perhaps the most lazy iteration thereof I have yet experienced: full of empty space and devoid of the wonder which the world was meant to evoke. If you're simply wondering if this is worth getting: well, no, to be frank. If you're a fan, get it on a deep sale for the nostalgia and don't expect much game. If you weren't a fan going in, there is nothing here for you. This is one I feel I'm dissenting from the popular opinion on, so by all means, if you want more depth about that, read on, dear reader!

[paragraph on the intro here]

The Sorting Hat

So here's the rub, dear reader: whatever you feel about power fantasy or not in the game, the game falls apart even on the nostalgia angle pretty quickly. I can certainly understand some people whom are here for the nostalgia do not really care about being a Mary Sue or Gary Stu character - indeed, some people may even greatly enjoy that, and there's nothing wrong with a power fantasy; I'm guilty of it in much of my own roleplaying elsewhere. The thing for me for with Hogwart's Legacy is the shallow nature of the nostalgia on offer. The world doesn't feel like its Hogwarts or the Wizarding World, but rather something that exists entirely for the player character, and to gratify the player character. No more is this better evidenced than in the Sorting Hat scene. Where in the original movie with Harry this is a moderately-long examination of Harry's abilities and preferences, the game distills this down to the answer to a single question - which you can then go back and correct if it didn't get you the house you wanted. While this may come gratify the person whom simply wanted to choose themselves which house they ended up in, it demonstrates just how shallow the game is in its recreation of the world that it strives to evoke, and a greater conversation no doubt only would have enhanced this emulation. Yet no such effort is put forth here, in one of the more pivotal character scenes in the game. If it cannot be trusted to treat such a moment with any gravitas, how then can it be further trusted with the future moments in the game?