Harry Potter in gaming

 Makea a goodium gameius!

If you're around about the same age as me, there's a good chance you read Harry Potter, or watched the movies, or fell to sleep trying to watch any entry in the prequel franchise. Because for some reason those of my generation are all hopelessly addicted to the franchise of wizards and broomsticks in a manner that no one else can really understand. The older generation doesn't see the appeal, and I personally know at least one older critic who vehemently dislikes the writing style of J.K Rowling specifically, whilst the younger generation scoffs at the idea that one pop culture element could end up infiltrating and defining a whole generation like that, whilst they simultaneously make and share Tik Toks on their algorithmically charged video sharing website. But for us, there is no way of explaining that special magical charm that the world of Witchcraft and Wizardry imparts to us, despite the ravings of the grumpy old hag who sired the series.

As such it only makes sense that our generation, also privy to the explosion of many modern game design innovations, would also be met with a string of Harry Potter games to capitalise on the smash hit phenomena movie franchise. And indeed, we did get ourselves Harry Potter games. A lot in fact. More than there are movies to directly adapt from- in fact, even if we don't include Mobile games, there are more than twice as many games as there are books! And none of those games, as of yet, have based themselves solely off the books so that is quite the strange ratio, wouldn't you say?  What could these games possibly be based on to try and spark that magical hum inside of our souls and make absolutely stupid amounts of EA money? (And later some other studios too.)

The first is actually something of an oddity. Released in 2001 'Lego Creator: Harry Potter', spawned from a sandbox building game, called Lego Creator, which was created to be some sort of updatable substitute for the physical Lego 'toys'. As such, the Harry Potter aspect of this is less of a game and more like 4 build sets based on Harry Potter that can be built inside this computer program, but it was licenced Potter software that would have been sold in the 'games' bargain bin at the local Supermarket; so that means it counts in my book! The first real game would have been 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' which was released in several wildly different versions. The PlayStation and PC games followed the same style as one another, but were different in content. Still, both were action adventure exploration games. The Gameboy Advanced title was more of a top down adventure/puzzle hybrid title, and the Gameboy game was a RPG. Straight up. And I really want to play it. Harry Potter RPG- are you kidding me? That sounds SICK!

From there the games follow a very predictable trajectory, following the movies into the next title with one big update; 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' had a PlayStation 2 version as well! As you can imagine that meant wildly improved textures, scope and gameplay (if fiddly in the controls) as well as a fully voiced narrative. (the first game had to deal with a lot of text and some occasional voices.) Oh, and there was a Lego Creator update for the second film as well, if that's your thing. 2003 got something interesting, however. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone- wait what? That's right, EA turned around and created a new version of the first game for the newest generation of consoles using the assets and worlds built in Chamber of Secrets. What resulted was a game that followed the story of the original, looked significantly better but literally ripped entire layouts and gameplay sequences from the Second game. If gamers and children had any actual standards back then, that could have been the first significant controversy of this gaming franchise!

That year also saw the release of one of the last interesting side Harry Potter games the franchise would see for the decade; a game who's lack of follow-up is actually something of a controversy among Harry Potter game circles. Quidditch World Cup. It is insane to me how obvious of an appeal the quidditch game has and yet how under exploited that has been in the world of gaming. The only explanation in my head which justifies this is that Rowling simply put the kibosh on all attempts to make another Quidditch game until she nailed down the specifics of the game in a way that worked for however she wanted to use it in the narrative, which she never got around to doing. (She's a general let-down like that.) Even for the Hogwarts Legacy game that every Pot-head is losing their mind over, Quidditch won't make a playable appearance. It's like the cursed minigame or something.

The proceeding years presented a succession of Harry Potter games bought out as movie tie-ins that all seemed to lose their magic more and more from the Goblet of Fire onwards. I still here Goblet has it's fans, and some people at least mindlessly enjoyed Order of the Phoenix; but then on was just painful. The Half-Blood Price was stuck between trying to be flashy whilst keeping the whimsical charm of the games, ultimately resulting in a final product that pleased no one's tastes; and the Deathly Hallows 1 and 2 felt like they were trying to be the 'Call of Duty' of the Wizarding world. You would be amazed to think that exploration was ever fundamental to this game franchise, just from playing the Deathly Hallows games. Just because the stories were darker that didn't mean the gameplay had to get duller.

However, just in it's darkest moment did the Harry Potter franchise get it's kick in the arm. Because just before the release of the Deathly Hallows games, Lego Harry Potter released. (The real one.) It really was a simply perfect combination of franchises given that both styles of game really resembled one another once upon a time, before Potter grew into his angsty teens. Building blocks substituted for magically manipulating blocks, discovering secret areas of the Hogwarts castle by breaking down walls, just as the castle itself is living and shaping in the lore. The spells, the whimsy, the charm; it really was all there. And although TT made the perplexing choice to split the franchise into 'years 1-4' and 'years 5-7', without ever rectifying that with a complete edition; these games brought some of the magic back into a franchise that felt largely was wrung dry.

And ever since then Harry Potter fans have been left wanting for a console entry follow up. (Nope, I've never heard of Harry Potter Kinect and you should endeavour never to mention it again in my presence.) In all that time, amazingly, never has there been a Harry Potter game that gave the fans the one thing they've really wanted all this time; the chance to become a new comer to Hogwarts and live that life themselves. (I refuse to acknowledge the Kinect game, there's no point bringing it up!) Which is perhaps why, even though I've said before that Hogwarts Legacy isn't quite the game you think it is in your head, even I'm swept by the promise of fulfilling that boyhood fantasy which was never quite lived out. Let's hope that the latent arcane potential of Harry Potter still has some of that ol' kick left come February. (I'd really love not to feel buyer's remorse on this game most of all.)