Hogwarts Legacy is a role-playing game released for PC and consoles in 2023. The game is based on the universe established in the wildly popular Harry Potter novels, which became a multi-billion-dollar movie series and a massive cultural phenomenon. It’s also due to become an HBO series at the end of this year. Many know the story already: an orphaned boy is whisked away to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to learn how to use magic. That’s the really short version of it, anyway. However, the game isn’t based on any direct writings, but is rather a wholly original story set in the same world, just at a very different time.
The game received excellent reviews, especially from the fans. There are so many hidden references and Easter eggs that show just how much genuine love was poured into the project. The game can easily consume dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of your time with how much there is to see and do, and it allows players to explore their favourite wizarding school in a way that no other video game adaptation has allowed them to. Beyond being an enjoyable experience, the game also patched a massive hole in the original franchise, one that was sorely in need of mending.
What is ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ about?
Hogwarts Legacy lets players control a custom character, a new student beginning their fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In the early sequences of the game, players will customize their name and looks, be sorted into their house, and will even receive their very own wand, courtesy of Ollivander’s wand shop. The game is set in the Victorian Era, roughly a century before the main events of Harry Potter. Throughout the narrative, players attend classes, make friends, enroll in clubs, learn spells, and try to save the world from a new rising threat. The goblin Ranrok is leading a vicious rebellion against wizardkind, and it’s up to you to stop him and his nefarious allies.
Being an RPG, the game has loads of side quests tacked onto it, as well. Many of these involve learning the Dark Arts, delving into forgotten tombs, protecting magical wildlife from poachers, brewing potions, and creating a personal space via the Room of Requirement. The story isn’t only set in Hogwarts; rather, it is set throughout the entire Hogsmeade valley, including the town of Hogsmeade, and various other small hamlets and landmarks in the region. Some people didn’t like how the game felt a bit sparse and unpopulated with how huge the map was, but on the other hand, many fans appreciated how it encouraged exploration and discovery, and how there’s never a shortage of things to do. The vastness of its map is just one example of how the game improved on the setting of the original books and films, and how it only bettered the overall brand.
The Harry Potter Franchise Previously Felt Too Contained, Despite Extensive Lore
The main problem with Harry Potter is that everything felt much smaller-scale than it should have; simply, the worldbuilding is not that great. For one, the books and movies feature a conflict called the Second Wizarding War, which is too broad a statement that implies there had never been wizarding wars in the world before, even though the lore details magical individuals existing for thousands of years. It also seems to imply a larger, more global conflict, when the reality is that it was almost entirely confined to the UK and Ireland. The books frequently reference other places and feature international monsters and beasts, but don’t physically take the reader to any of these settings. The lore also talks about legendary figures like Merlin or the dark wizard Ekrizdis, yet only in passing mentions. Lastly, it details extensive family lines from respected magical clans, including the Blacks, yet few of these people actually make an appearance.
Later on, the saga does introduce other magical schools like Durmstrang of Northern and Eastern Europe and Beauxbatons of Western and Central Europe, but these places never make a physical appearance. The Fantastic Beasts movies go to New York City and reference the North American magic school, Ilvermorny, which does help the world feel broader. Still, this Wizarding World feels much smaller than it should, almost like New York and the UK are two completely separate universes. There is very little overlap between them, save for maybe a couple of characters and references. The Fantastic Beasts movies also added to the universe’s backstory, being set in the roaring ’20s, but much of the world that isn’t mentioned, to the point that it almost feels nonexistent. The books also have a habit of mentioning a lot of magical creatures without actually showing them, something Fantastic Beasts tried to fix, with decidedly uneven results.
‘Hogwarts Legacy’ Makes the Wizarding World Live Up to Its Name
Hogwarts Legacy makes the Wizarding World feel expansive for the first time in the franchise. There aren’t just British students in Hogwarts, but exchange students, too. For example, one of the primary allies is Natsai Onai, a student who previously attended Ouagadou, the African wizarding academy in Uganda. Natsai, or “Natty” as players come to know her, talks a bit about life at Ouagadou, where students don’t use traditional wands, but rather their hands or bodies to conjure magic. There are also students and professors from South and East Asia, making Hogwarts feel like it’s actually connected to the broader Wizarding World.
The game also enriches the world’s history and lore. Through a series of flashbacks and vision sequences, players see how Hogwarts used to be and speak to some of its previous professors, some of them dating back to the Middle Ages. There are also hundreds of collectible book pages to find, many of them detailing the history of the items and landmarks within the castle and the valley. These fill a gap in Hogwarts’ history, which, save for its original founders, is almost entirely unknown. Now, players can at least get an idea of what the school used to be like and who used to run the place after the founders.
Moreover, many of the characters are actually ancestors or distant relations of memorable characters from the novels and movies. The headmaster of the castle is Phineas Nigellus Black, a distant relation of Sirius Black. Phineas is actually glimpsed in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, as a painting in Dumbledore’s office. He doesn’t speak, so it’s great that this game allowed players to see what kind of headmaster Phineaa actually was. Aside from Professor Black, Hogwarts’ headmistress is the red-headed and good-natured Matilda Weasley, an ancestor of the modern Weasley family that many know from the books and films.
There’s also Ominis Gaunt, a surprisingly well-intentioned Slytherin student who many will recognize as the ancestor of Lord Voldemort himself. Ominis even talks about his family history and how he is directly related to an original co-founder of Hogwarts, Salazar Slytherin. The presence of all these characters only deepens the lore, making family history more coherent and interesting. The game also added to what Fantastic Beasts started by including a ton of magical wildlife, so players can see how they interact with the world and how they behave, making the universe feel vibrant and alive.
‘Hogwarts Legacy’ Makes What the Books and Movies Couldn’t
At the end of the day, Hogwarts Legacy contributes so much to the Wizarding World in many ways. From its lore to its connections to its wildlife, the game makes the established universe much, much deeper and more compelling. Finally, it feels like a proper universe, with a deep, rich history, with wide-reaching influence, and with actual life populating it, all hidden away from the non-magic folk.
More importantly, it finally fulfils the Wizarding World’s potential. Hogwarts Legacy isn’t just a fun game; it feels like a unique story rather than just an extension of an already existing one. It makes the player feel like the Wizarding World is just that, and that the main sequence of Harry Potter is just a small part of it. This detail goes a long way in making both the main series and this stellar RPG feel that much more engrossing. Especially now, with a somewhat unnecessary remake coming, it’s easy to see Hogwarts Legacy as the path forward for the Potter saga.
