The Hogwarts Legacy 2 Wishlist

With the rampant, nigh on unhinged, levels of success that the original Hogwarts Legacy received, it seems all but confirmed that we'll be getting our hands on a sequel at some point in the near-to-distant future. (But just to be clear- it has not actually been confirmed yet- despite what some outlets might like you to believe with the way they word their titles.) As of yet the team behind the game have been suspiciously hands-off when it comes to supporting the game's player base. All we've had is a Beta for a Quidditch game which is more than likely going to be standalone and the recent delivery of the PS exclusive quest which some people are calling the game's "Best Quest" but which I cannot be bothered to redownload the game in order to verify. (Smells like the same 'smoke blowing' the game has been privy to every month since launch.)

But just because we haven't seen the game yet, that doesn't mean we can't form healthy expectations and wishes for what we want to see out of it when the title actually does descend from the heavens! I, for one, wish for greater scope of role playing because Legacy offered a pretty curated and straight forward path down it's narrative with very few mostly minor choices for deviation. Dataminers have claimed to have uncovered the remnants of canned relationship meters and even a house points systems, which (if true) would indicate that the team at least dreamt big once upon a time, but maybe with the added momentum of being 2023's best selling game they'll have the resources to put the time and effort into making Legacy 2's narrative feel better tailored to us as individuals. Which would necessitate more complex quests, a more consistent and relevant core cast and tangible, gameplay affecting, consequence- I cannot stress that last point enough!

Secondly, and this is a point I bring up with practically every open world game these days- we need more minigames in order to make the gameworld feel alive. I'm not just talking about Quidditch- in fact that would sound more like a giant meta-game rather than a brief distraction. But give us Wizard chess, a trading card top trumps style game utilising a chocolate frog collectable hunt, a wizardry tree cutting game- anything to bring the casual aspect of this world alive and into better focus. Like a Dragon will always be my metric of measurement in this case- wherein their playspaces come to life thanks to the plethora of side content they stuff every corner of their worlds with, typically with rewards that tie back to the main progression paths in some abstract way. To be clear, I'm not talking about exploration objectives- Hogwarts actually was really strong in that regard- I mean in universe pastimes and hobbies. That is how an open world goes that extra step beyond!

And thirdly, I want more of a Hogwarts simulation. Living the day to day is fine, but going through the 'classes' motions should be as simple as following Bully's formula. Optional attendance lessons that you get in trouble for ditching which reinforce your skills if you complete, and become entirely legal to skip once you 'complete' the class. That seems entirely reasonable where I'm standing. Again, this is about building the fiction of being a Hogwarts Student and better combing the nature of power growth with student studies in an inherently diegetic manner. It's better than just mastering a spell seconds after being taught it such as in the original! Make me feel like I earnt my power as a competent duelling wizard!

Also, this is admittedly more of a personal desire but I would really like there to only be a totally new narrative for a follow-up game, not just shoving us into Year 6 following this same cast. I desperately wanted the original to tell the story of a freshman to Hogwarts, total wizarding world fantasy, living throughout the years through the RPG choices of the player. Of course, such a game would demand unreal scope, so I expect we'd instead get two years or so with every subsequent game, but that would still allow us to mould a narrative across the next ten years of Harry Potter games- the best of all worlds as far as I'm concerned! Imagine a series regularly improving upon itself like the 'Like a Dragon' games do- building upon the fundamentals but sometimes featuring a different world space for a few chapters to spruce things up, or a wild new meta-game where the protagonist gets really into running a confectionary business or an island resort- the ideal money printing franchise, right there!

But do you know what we're actually going to end up with? Because with David Zaslav's recent interest in Live Services- I can pretty much foresee the future of the 'Legacy' franchise right here. We could very well get the 'Year 1' game that I'm shooting for, but it will be delivered as a platform for recurrent content, with every new season relating to a season of the year of your character's school life in Hogwarts. Which sounds decently diegetic until you think of how they will reinforce that- spreading a narrative for each year across 4 content releases stretched out with bitch-tasks in order to feel more substantive. Battle passes that keep you hooked to the one game. Buyable cosmetics instead of finding them out in the world. We're basically going to see the erasure of all the original's best loved features and their dissolution into petty crap.

I fully expect David to squeeze this franchise for everything it's worth and loose the interest of the fandom world in doing so. Nostalgia baiting only works up to a point and the team are going to find that out once they screw up a release so badly that people don't come back. Just look at the embarrassing underperformance of the 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' franchise for evidence. (Still searching for those 'Secrets' Dumbledore has reportedly got tucked away somewhere...) Because the man is a blunt instrument in an art studio- crashing haphazardly into the instruments as he drunkenly pretends to know what he's doing, ruining the canvass with his flailing in the process.

Which is my very long winded way of saying that my biggest wish for Hogwarts Legacy 2 is for it to retain the ultimate spirit which made the first so lovable. Not because it was particularly innovative or ground breaking, but because it achieved everything in a well to a decent degree. It was a game believably made by a team who cared enough about the property to not only do a good job, but to make a game that they want to play. How many big studio developers honestly make games that they themselves want to play in their spare time? I honestly think most of them don't play games in their spare time at all. As long as Hogwarts 2 can keep that backbone alive, that's all they need in order to bring me and many others back next time around.

Hogwarts Supremacy

 

When I look back at 2023 it is with a startling realisation that I remember how Hogwarts Legacy actually released that year and yet somehow didn't get a Game of the Year nod. I mean sure, it wasn't worthy of being slid into the 'Ultimate Game of the Year' category, but you'd have thought there would have been some sort of 'adventure game' nomination or something. The title wasn't some sleeper hit that got swept under the rug. It was a mover and a shaker, it got everyone talking and most importantly of all in the eyes of the money-hungry- it is reportedly the number one best selling game of the entire year! That's right, throw away your COD, bury your GTA and even shelf your Baldur's Gate 3's! (Even if that might be an objectively superior game) Because capitalism says Hogwarts is your king!

And to be fair, the game really did earn it's success. It appealed to the one basement desire that every video game needs to rock around to at some point in the complicated and pretentious process of purposeful envisioning: it fulfilled a fantasy. Particularly the fantasy to be a member of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but more specifically the fantasy of exploring the world conjured up in the books of J.K. Rowling and hammered into stark realisation by the movies of Warner Bros. I actually think it's the visual identity that Warner Bros. invented for the movie which the game relies most on selling, with the wider tidbits of world and lore serving as mere garnishing for the truly obsessed. We wanted to walk on the sets of those movies as though they were real, and Legacy gave us that first opportunity!

Which is really the biggest victory of Hogwarts Legacy, because when it comes to actually roleplaying as a witch or wizard- the game is merely serviceable. There many suppositions and apparent data-mined information of scrapped systems and half finished ideas that tell the story of a game that wanted to be something of a true-to-heart RPG, but which settled for something of a Minimum Viable Product in the systems of what this game needed to be. What might have been a somewhat replayable RPG fantasy instead become an inspired Far Cry coded exploration empowered action adventure game with a throw-away narrative draped across a personality soaked world. It must be a testament to the sheer performance of those world builders, that all that nitty gritty substance which typically sets me off melts in the magic of the world coming together. That doesn't happen by accident!

I think in my blog review on the game I actually summed it up nicely when I said the most exciting thing about Hogwarts Legacy isn't even the game on offer itself, but rather the potential of what the game could lead to with sequels and the like. And whilst I don't think we've had a sequel announced in any official capacity- come on- they'd be insane not to! (And we have got a Quidditch themed side game which should get an announcement at some point.) Looking back, it's speaks to the bar of 2023 that such a big and loud game as that got lost under the turmoil and craziness that the rest of 2023 contained. But the buying public never forgot it! Not for a single errant moment. I suppose there's little more likely to score the big bucks than a product which has appeal to the general consumer and not just the game-consuming public.

As Gaming Bible has pointed out in their piece on the topic, with 22 Million sales- Hogwarts Legacy is just 1.6 million odd away from slipping onto the best selling video games of all times list, (as credited by the world's most foremost historian in both their prolific catalogue and unquestionable respect= Wikipedia) and in doing so knock Mario Kart DS off the list- as cruel as that would be. It really cannot be understated how successful of a game this was, particularly in the face of the apparent boycott that was kicked up over the game on social media following grumpy assertions as to the personal politics of the team and that of known curmudgeon J.K Rowling. (Because every Harry Potter fan just loves JK, don't we? That was sarcasm, we knew she lost the plot before the rest of the world did.)

It really does reflect poorly on the strength of such movements and backlash, seeing stratospheric numbers like these, and though I have to wonder if all of that controversy might have contributed to the game's erasure from the 'Game of Year' nominee list, there's no arguing with the buying power of the public. It's the same problem that activist buyers have run into over the rise of low effort cash grab franchises or meticulously overzealous monetisation practises- although these issues sound so big and important in and around your small circle of friends, no one cares outside that little bubble. Criticism is washed away by undeniable success and suddenly you're a footnote in somebody else's story. (Which is why we switched to hassling legislators- that certainly gets things done quicker!)

Warner Bros. have, of course, got their hardy gloves and milking buckets out when it comes to the potential of this franchise. Since Fantastic Beasts has managed to ride it's goodwill directly off a cliff with increasingly pathetic movies, video games are currently the most sure bet that the Harry Potter franchise can rely on. (We'll see if that upcoming TV series manages to conjure up any interest.) David Haddid, President of WB, alluded to as much in an interview with Variety. He stated that there are a "series of other things" swirling around their heads when it comes to the Harry Potter franchise, and that no doubt is going to manifest into Ubisoft levels of oversaturation until we're so sick of Hogwarts we just want to blow the whole place up and start again! Which they will then do and move us to the American School. (Or maybe the French one? Always liked those uniforms. As eloquent fashion icon Ron Weasley himself had to say on the matter: "Bloody hell!")

All I'm asking for in regards to the coming Harry Potter deluge is another back-to-basics experience. A game that tells the story of one's entire Hogwarts career, from induction to graduations- in order to allow us to literally live the career of our own Hogwarts hero. Of course, you'd need a studio as insane as Larian to commit to making such a product, particularly with effective RPG mechanics and choice and consequence wound into a story that large, but the potential! That would be the crowing achievement of this franchise worthy of hanging one's hat on. That would redeem the Harry Potter name in the eyes of the public. That is the final form of this Harry Potter Portkey Gaming experiment that all of us are slap-dab in the middle of.

Wasting my time

Burning my life.

The other day I mentioned how time is the most valuable resource that a player can have, which is why so many games go out of their way in order to convince a player that they are making some scant progress with theirs no matter what it is that they're commiting to. Only Dark Souls and it's ilk really have the true grit to pull out that last hour of gameplay from under the player's feet and tell them to deal with it without that decision being then lambasted as bad game design. (Probably because the general design of Soulslike games is so geared towards intrinsic progression as well as extrinsic, such that taking away all your 'Souls' is a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of 'gitting gud') But there are certain games out there that not only care little for respecting your time, but go out of their way to spit on it with systems called 'Time gates'. Let's talk about that.

Explaining a time gate is best done by examining the kings of this particular crop: Mobile Games. Who out there has played a mobile game and reached that point where they can't progress any further because they have to wait for a timer? Maybe it's a a bar of energy that refills 1 unit every 15 minutes. Maybe it's the building process of your barrack upgrade that's going to take several hours, or maybe even several days, to complete. These are time gates. And typically a mobile game will design itself to slowly introduce these inconveniences in order to slowly wring the patience of their free-to-play players just as they were starting to get hooked on the gameplay loop in order to manipulate them into spending money to skip the wait. That is the most cynical version of time gating, but it's not the only iteration that gaming has ever known.

In fact, MMOs have themselves been very familiar with Time Gates for a decently long time now, with the concept typically existing in conjunction with daily or even weekly activity limits. Here the reasoning is a lot less nefarious, you may run a certain dungeon and only be given full rewards the first time a day you complete it, or the first time a week if it's a raid. Most of the time this exists in order to expand out the lifespan of that content in order to stretch out player retention. Grinding for gear drops is the draw of these higher difficulty content patches anyway; and as that loot tends to drop randomly, if you limit the amount of 'pulls' a player is privvy to, you automatically give them a reason to keep coming back day after day or week after week in order to pull the exact right piece of gear with the right stats that they want. By the time that player rolls their ideal drop, they'll have already established the pattern of logging into that MMO everyday.

In a very similar vein, I've noticed that APRGs have begun following a very similar trajectory even with their much smaller grasp of online functionality. Games like Diablo are built around the thirst and hunger for loot drops, as the very gameplay loop from the get-go revolves around hunting after that 1% increase to that one special attack you can do every minute and a half. Sometimes you'll have special gates that unlock during a season of the game, which in itself is tied to a system of FOMO offering unique drops that can only be found in this season through these special dungeons you can only run once in a given time. This way there's an aura of excitement and pressure built around the time gate, where the player is hopped up on the desire not to fail and risk the chance of getting these limited time items.

And to take a more contemporary and specific approach, who played Hogwarts Legacy? Without going into any spoilers, there comes a point within the narrative where the player earns themselves a crafting space within the Room of Requirement. The only hang-up? Crafting, growing, brewing, rearing and breeding is all tied to the limitations of a time gate that ticks along as you play the game, but in real time; alongside the ingredients it takes to make any of this stuff to begin with. The time gates are typically miniscule, and if you set everything off before you leave by the next time you have enough free time to peek back in all the relevant stations will most definitely have popped; but that it even exists like that in the first place is surprisingly out-of-character for any modern open world RPG not on mobile phones or handhelds.

 

Time gates work by tying the interest and investment of the player to a location and activity without any active engagement to that particular point, allowing that pressure point to fester and nag at the player long after they've moved onto other things or, in the case of mobile games, other activities entirely. They work by dragging the player into a relationship of expectation where they are responsible for keeping up with something, which means the game needs to be in a position to remind the player of their timers in order for the mechanic to be effective. Mobile games typically demand notification space to spam you the next day whilst you're sitting on the toilet, and other styles of game either place visual timers in heavily trafficked areas of the UI or have the important pressure point present in a key hub that the player is going to visit often.

But the question I keep asking myself whenever it comes to these systems is thus: Should they even exist? In a world of modern design sensibilities, what actual gameplay value is built for the player through time gating? Nothing. In fact, it's often seen as a lazy way to pad out content, such to the extent that some developers, such as Bioware when they made Anthem, try to hide their gate by creating menial fetch-quests to at least create the impression of meaningful gameplay. But it's so often just an act, or an illusion. Smoke and mirrors to expand the narrow constraints of what the developers could develop for the player to experience. But then again, that's not always the whole story, now is it? It can't always be that nefarious.

I think that the very currency that time gates play with, the free time of the player, turns what sounds like a very simple concept into a much more complex dilemma by it's very nature. Some games have very sensible reasons for not wanting their players to grind through all available content as quickly as possible, and it is true that activities which take someone longer to complete do inherently feel more valuable. But I think there's a very important scale that can be easily tipped with systems like these, and a game that wants to ethically respect it's players time needs to know how to be exceedingly sparing with their usage of time gating as a mechanic lest they cross the very thin line from enriching small systems to annoying everyone with grating meandering. 

Making a villain (Part 1?)

 I'm the bad guy.

I've had villains on the mind recently. I can't really nail the reason down to one recent experience in media because, truth be told, the very concept of villainous characters is just utterly ubiquitous with storytelling in general. Particularly in video games. We yearn to have some sort of foil to overcome, typically a humanoid one with sharp teeth and a scowl, But what are the ingredients that go into making the kinds of villains that we remember and harken back to time and time again, and what are the sorts of villains that end up as duds? Well, it's a topic that stretches back as far back as stories, to and likely beyond that famous Mesopotamian poem: the epic of Gilgamesh, and as such I doubt I'll be able to nail down the exacts in a single introspective blog here and now. But taking some baby steps, I want to talk about recent villainous character that I've experienced to ruminate over the things that work and things that don't. (I'll put spoiler tags at the beginning of each relevant paragraph.)

(Puss in Boots: The Last Wish spoilers) So The Bounty Hunter in Puss in Boots is a great example of a supremely effective villain, even as he shares that role with two others. Though he's not the most present bad guy on screen, he's the instigator, the motivation and ultimately- the closer. All this is achieved very clearly despite the fact his true intentions are cleverly concealed until the third act- and that's because of a very clever framing device. You see, spoilers, The Bounty Hunter is not actually a simple hunter gunning for the price on Puss' head who just happens to be more skilled than him in every way, he's literally Death. Hunting after Puss to to snuff out his last life because, as classical depictions attest, he hates little more than being cheated out of his prize and cats cheat death more than most. (And Puss does it so disrespectfully too.) This isn't a simple bait and switch, it's a switch up and escalation where the magnitude of the trouble the main character is in blossoms exponentially- skyrocketing the stakes. Death is also a fantastically rounded antagonist, making the most of his scenes to spur on the plot, drive at Puss' fear, and then symbolise his overcoming of the narratives conceit with his, particularly poignant, 'stalemate'. He only retreats because Puss has discovered a respect for the one life he has left, thus satisfying Death's clearly stated ethos, as disgruntled as the Wolf is to admit it. As far as villain writing goes, Death must be one of the most efficiently complex in modern storytelling.

(Also, Puss in Boots) Jack Horner, on the otherhand, is delightfully one-note and proud of it. An heir to a pie business he would turn into a empire, 'The Last Wish' is very clear to establish that Jack has absolutely no excuse baked into his backstory to explain his homicidal and utterly loyalty-free being. The man callously chases the last wish for an utterly selfish, and beautifully narrow minded goal- (literally just "I want to control all magic in the world") he spends the entire movie accidentally, but gleefully, murdering his own staff; and by the time his comeuppance comes even he seems unsure as to which one of his laundry list of crimes he should be getting punished for. Jack embodies all the ways that writers are traditionally conditioned not to write a villain, but these writers commit fully to the see-through villain concept in celebration of his utmost transparency. What results is a villain utterly pure in his intention and thus able to be enjoyably villainous- which makes a stark contrast to all recent Disney movies and their running theme villains of "My generation sees the world differently to how your generation does!"  

(Hogwarts Spoilers) If you want an idea of what happens when the Horner route isn't committed to fully, look no further than Hogwarts Legacy's Ranrok. Everything about that goblin is villainous, from his South-end gangster voice to his pointy teeth and evil eyes- but Hogwarts Legacy can't decide on whether they want to make him cartoonishily evil or darkly sympathetic. On one hand, he seems driven by nothing but a vague desire to be more powerful than wizards- which sounds mostly indistinct as far as plans go. On the otherhand, he's lionized a movement based on generations of perceived wizarding oppression, which itself feeds into the natural sympathy of the underdog. Neither angle is delved into significantly, which makes the entire characterisation feel very wafer thin. And wafer thin villains tend to verge towards the forgettable before long.

(FromSoft Soulslike spoilers) Every FromSoftware Souls-Like game pretty much has the same final villain who, naturally, serves as a microcosm of the narrative and/or game world. The biggest commonality in all of the Souls games is that they almost always depict a once grand kingdom that has fallen past it's prime and is, or has, collapsed(ing)- with Dark Souls specifically revolving around the idea of perpetuating the dying kingdom or letting it pass with grace. Which is probably why almost every Souls Games ends with a battle against a frail old man who was, at once, the stately king of that world. Even as his power and skill surges up to be that final game challenge, they always wear on their design the embodiment of their disrepair. Gwyn wears his charred robes and desiccated skin, such that he looks more a walking corpse or hollow than a once proud king. Ishin is reborn young, but we can see it's just a shadow of the broken body which had just a while ago passed on. In the Shura ending, you do fight that old body with it's boney limbs and brittle white hair. Even Nashandra from Dark Souls 2 sheds her healthy body in favour of puppeteering her marionette of bones- a personification of decay itself. In this way, FromSoft turns the tackling of the boss into a higher confrontation against the core conceit of the narrative itself. Higher conceptual ideas indeed.

(Spiderman PS4) Which brings we around to one of my favourite villains in a game I recently played, Otto Octavius from Spiderman. Now anyone with a passing knowledge of the Spiderman mythos knew exactly who Dr Octavius was within the lore; but the Spiderman PS4 reimaging of Peter Parker's world recontextualized the doctor as a brilliant confidant and mentor for the scientist and researcher inside of Peter. The writers devoted quite a lot of attention not just to establishing how indebted to the doctor Peter is, giving him a job when he had nothing, but also how much Peter looks up to the good doctor, as a personification of the underdog who rejects the easy sell-out route in favour of striving to the betterment of mankind. All this backdrop and contextualisation makes the inevitable moment where the doctor goes mad, from pushing too fast on his own experiments, all the more tragic- like a Greek play: you know what's coming and the only question is how high the play will raise the characters before their fall. But there's actually one moment which I think cuts deeper than all else. From the moment things start going wrong, the developers offer a softening olive branch to ease the pain of the doctor's betrayal. "It's his neural chip frying with his brain: this isn't the same man that Peter looked up to!" 

Whilst simultaneously playing both sides by hinting this darker side was always part of Otto, all the chip did was override his reservation and ability to self-mediate. This is that balance between committal and backtracking which I think a lot of writers get stuck within in modern storytelling; presenting ambiguity and confusing it with complexity. Not that there's anything wrong with such a set-up, indeed some of the best confrontations in fiction are the one's where you still can't decide who was in the right 10 hours after you put the book down; (Like with Huey from MGSV) but the greatest hit to the gut will always come from full committal. That's why I rate so much that moment, in the very last encounter of the game, where Spiderman is stopped just a few seconds before the seemingly inevitable 'rip off my mask to show you who I am and appeal to the human inside' trope scene which almost every major Spiderman story attempts at least once. He is stopped by the reveal that, Doc Ock already knew he was Peter. He always knew. And everything he did, brutalising and victimising Spiderman, he was knowingly committing on Peter as well. What a simply fantastic way to crash the worlds of Spiderman and Peter into one, which is again one of the running themes of that game's entire narrative. And a cold break from the expected into the cold truth of the stark and haunting. That moment, in print and in performance, might be one of the most powerful scenes I've personally experienced in Superhero media- all because the writers knew where to commit to really dig the dagger deep and twist the handle!

From this brief glance at some of the most interesting badguys of the past year (at least for me- I know Sekiro and Spiderman reach back quite a bit further) I think one general consensus we can draw is that the most effective villains marry the core conceit and theming of the story into themselves and commit to one extreme or the other. Whilst realism would demand the more mediated two-sided approach, our simple dopamine-craving minds respond much more to that clearly defined, cut between the lines, villain. (With a full stop) There is nuance, of course, for mediums, genres, themes and styles; but the talent of the storyteller is to recognise what works and figure out how to brew that same dish with different, sometimes wacky and bizarre, ingredients. Maybe unravelling these concepts will help enrich us, both in how we consume and conjure stories in the future. And maybe I'll try some similar investigations in the future, depending on how I feel about the topic.

Apparently Hogwart's Legacy is going to be a TV show now!

 Something's wrong, I can feel it...

See now this is what I was talking about! I have been keeping up with the Last of Us as it's ticked along in episodes, I and several million others if those generous viewing figures are anything to go by, and as good as the show is (if slightly rushed in events) I've always found myself disquiet about the precedent it's success will set upon the 'marketplace of ideas' that is modern Hollywood. And yes, I do use 'Hollywood' as a shorthand for all modern day media, even though I know that is factually a bit spotty; if only I cared enough to stop. Because the modern media machine is like a shark swimming around in the deep blue, all it needs is to catch the slightest whiff of chum from half an ocean away and that predator launches all over it's the prey like rats on a carcass. And The Last of Us has been no small success. If numbers are to be trusted, that show has to be one of the biggest hits of this year and last year too. All while being one of the most faithful video game adaptations we've ever had; copycats were an inevitability.

That being said, I do find myself of two minds upon learning that the Hogwarts Legacy team are in talks to produce their own TV show based on the world they constructed. On the one hand that sounds like yet another one of those hair-trigger adaptations shoot out from the barrel directly after the world's honeymoon phase with the game, whilst the bedsheet are still warm. Yes, Hogwarts Legacy has done gangbuster numbers, but that doesn't mean it's the greatest thing since sliced bread! And it's narrative isn't a touch on The Last of Us' story, in the slightest! On the otherhand, I can see the connection in name and setting as more of a case of happenstance, because at the end of the day there's not really any reason why a Hogwarts Legacy TV show would be an adaptation of the game; it would really just be a Harry Potter TV Show.

Surely the Warner Bros team have been thinking of making one for a while now. Ever since it became clear that J.K. Rowling would not step back from writing bad scripts for the Fantastic Beasts movies, it was clear that the Harry Potter franchise needed a new avenue if it wanted to relight itself for the new age. 'The Cursed Child' is rumoured to be getting an adaptation featuring the returned cast from the movies, but considering the general consensus around the actual quality of that story, such a promise sounds more like a threat. (I just hope that an adaptation will give us a full blow animated rendition of the supposed story where Astoria Greengrass jumps back in time to 'do the dirty' with no-nose. I need that insanity visualised.) Further rumours of a general Harry Potter reboot are met with universal retching noises from the supposed target demographic. And after the box office performance of 'Secrets of Dumbledore', or lack thereof, it's clear that the story of Newt Scamander will end as unfinished as it... actually, his story really wrapped itself up at the end of the first movie. He's been pretty much sleeping his way through the rest of the 'Fantastic Beasts' movies anyway.

Hogwarts Legacy in setting presents something of a fresh start and clean break away from all that happened in the 1990's. (The time period of Harry Potter.) The basic ties of familiarity are there, but the 1800's are full of their own concerns, with poachers hunting magical beasts, Goblins waging war against Wizards and Ancient Magic dripping off of every curtain. For the first time since 'Philosophers Stone', a new TV show set in this time would present a totally fresh opportunity for newcomers to jump into the franchise of Harry Potter, which would be the mounting point for newly minted millennial parents to introduce their bratty kids to the world they used to read about in school. (Look at me, I'm talking like a marketing stooge now. These courses are really starting to get the better of how I think, aren't they?)

The actual narrative of Hogwarts Legacy is surprisingly light and doesn't carry all that many personable characters behind it's script when it comes to the protagonist or their school friends, which makes it more than likely that any TV show set in this time would, by share necessity, have to construct it's own guiding narrative. Which suits me just fine because the game I played left more than enough room for any such story to slide on in around the events of that game without causing any ruckus whatsoever. In many ways, the only point of this game was to conjure a world for the Harry Potter mythos that could exist without the glasses kid or his painfully extended lore, and everything else the game delivered was just a bonus ribbon on the package. A TV show could happily exist within that newly minted world, doubling down on it's affirmation by bringing actual characters and complex narratives into the framework, which is the one thing holding back the game from being truly legendary in my eyes. There could actually be a world were both the TV show and this game series exist without treading on each other's shoes at all.

Being put to TV, Hogwarts Legacy could benefit from telling a wider story that covers a wider breadth of the wizarding world. For example, and keeping to the narrative of the game, we could follow a bevy of characters from across the wizarding world that all have conflicting perspectives on the Goblin rebellion, with supporters and dissenters all being given their breadth of humanity and purpose to pack some extra layer of nuance behind the somewhat important movement at the heart of the world's story. Maybe we could have one character be a Goblin who is outspoken about improving the lot of his folk but whom doesn't resort to crude tactics of his more brutish brethren at the beginning of the series. Then we might witnesses as throughout the series that Goblin is subjected to injustice after injustice, a beating here to a protest turning into a massacre there, until by the end of the series his taking to arms against the wizarding kind feels almost just and necessary, at least given his situation. That's the kind of muti-layered characters that can't be built in a fixed-perspective world like the one Hogwarts Legacy presents in it's game form.

Of course, I refer to any future with a Hogwarts TV series as a package deal with an upcoming game sequel, because at this point it's pretty much a done deal that we're getting more Legacy games. Although nothing has been written in the stones as of yet, Hogwarts Legacy made around 850 million within the space of two weeks and the team didn't have any DLC plans ready to capitalize on that flurry of fans. So making a sequel is just basic business sense. Plus, Warner Bros. have been needing a win for the Harry Potter franchise for a while now, so investing into more games in this series seems like a no brainer. Plus, there's plenty of wanting features that the Legacy team are coyly teasing might worm their way into a sequel, proving the idea is definitely buzzing around the studio. (Such as playable Quidditch!) We could feasibly have a climate where the future Hogwarts Legacy 2 releases alongside a future series of this supposed TV show for some of that sweet cross promotional marketing all the kids are raving about these days.

As far as news could go for upcoming video game to TV adaptations; this is by far the worst idea I've ever heard of. In fact, I'm almost happy to welcome any expanded Harry Potter media that doesn't have Ezra Miller in it, because that actor's entire deal just makes my stomach churn. I just hope that whatever happens the key-most rules of adaptation are adhered to- don't try to overwrite the legitimacy of the game's narrative with a new one unless the new narrative is objectively better, don't overwrite the custom character of the game (thus robbing fans of their place in the universe) and don't mention Zootopia porn. Because after Resident Evil, you just never know what these rapid show executives are going to come up with next.

Hogwarts Legacy Review

Just because you can exterminate darkness, that doesn't mean that you should.

I am a millennial. That is my charge and my punishment. And being that most cursed of generations, just below or above Gen Z depending on who's doing the judging, it is pretty much a given that I have sat down and consumed the conglomerate mega-titan that is Harry Potter within my lifetime. Either by reading the books or watching the movies, everyone of my age bracket found themselves hopelessly bewitched by the tales of J.K. Rowling to such a degree that I know for a fact many of my contemporaries (and myself) found themselves severely upset when they reached the age of 11 and their Owl did not arrive. I was a reader, consuming the entire book series through at least twice, but I was enough of a Potter addict to watch most of the movies as well. (Still haven't seen Deathly Hallows Part 2) As well as play all of the move tie-in games that I could get my grubby little mitts on, of course.

But even with all the might of the media conglomerate machine that was the Harry Potter empire in it's prime, there was always this ever present longing wrought in my flesh wanting to be closer to the world of Potter. To climb into the pages of the book and live the world of attending 'Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry'. As with any good fiction, those urges transcended the realm of imagination and clung like a fever throughout the years. Games are typically the medium to feed and relieve such stresses- but Harry Potter games did have an unfortunate tendency to be... move tie-ins. To be fair, the Potter games were better than your typical tie-in trash that other movie franchises subjected the industry to- but I wouldn't call any one Harry Potter video game itself exceptional. The first two are classics, no doubt; but more for the nostalgic connotations than the strengths of their fibre.

When Hogwarts Legacy was announced, first as a rumoured MMO than later as a single player RPG, all the words seemed to fit perfectly into place to describe the sort of game every Potter fan wanted, even if they didn't realise it. Free open world exploration of Hogwarts? Putting my own character in the game and experiencing the process of learning magic? Progressing along several lines of deep RPG levelling systems to create a wizard or witch unique to us? Why, that's something the Harry Potter games, by definition as adaptations, could never have offered us! To say that expectations surrounding the delivery of this game were high seems like a gross underestimation- perhaps it would be more apt to label them Everest-ian. As in- only the absolute best of the best could so much as dream of reaching the peaks necessary to pay off the promise of that pitch.

And yet for whatever twisted reason it would appear that I had faith in the team at Avalanche Software from the word go. That's the only way I can explain why I decided to pre-order the game from the moment I saw it hit store fronts, an action I never do unless I'm sure of the quality of the product. With Hogwarts Legacy however, I was disquiet. I wanted to believe in the hype train the community was riding, but at the same time I kept hearing disappointing blows to the image of the 'full immersion Hogwarts experience' that I dreamed of. It would only be focusing on a Fifth Year instead of running the gambit from First to Seventh, there would be no playable Quidditch, lessons would be events rather than obligations, there would be no house points system, and for perhaps the first time in the entire franchise- chocolate frogs wouldn't be collectibles! (The horror!) When the date finally arrived, I'll admit I did my best to temper my excitements with the realities fed to us.

Today not only is the game out, but I have played it from start to finish- completing enough of the game to have experienced every activity the game offers and actually coming a few shy hairs of 100%-ing the whole thing: which I don't typically do. With that level of experience I can properly introduce Hogwarts Legacy as an open world game mechanically in the same vain as those checklist Ubisoft open worlds that have become the bane of the industry, and yet this specimen comes doused with some curious splashes of personality to such a degree that the material is elevated above it's station. Until I reached the literal final few hours of play I never felt the chore aspect of being waylaid from a mission objective in order to solve a Merlin Puzzle, or hunt after a Field Guide Page that I heard tinkle on the edge of my Revelio cast; I enjoyed the chase, even more so than the rewards. 

I think the key to why exploration works is a key point to focus on when it comes to Hogwarts Legacy, because when I strip the package away to it's core most USP: (Unique Selling Point) I land on the prospect of exploring one of the most legendary fictitious locations in cinema and modern literature. That alone cannot really be understated because, obvious though it might seem to say, before this game Hogwarts never really existed. I mean of course it existed within our minds, built from the power of wordcraft and the magic of movie sets, but between neither of them was a coherent and cohesive layout of a place ever established. It almost seems adversarial to the castle itself to try and limit it's dimensions to any sort of comprehensive degree. Almost as though if I could rationalise the place, it's many halls, indecisive staircases and endless dozens of secrets, the magic of imagination that bought the place to life would fade from the stones. Like the anti-Tinkerbell, believing in the place felt like it would be the death of it. Overcoming that feeling took a very special ingredient which I think this game packs in droves: personality.

Creating a vast fictional Scottish castle sitting atop a lake is one thing, but imbuing the layout, colours, residents and furniture with the personality of Hogwarts would take nothing less than a team possessed by the demanding demon of exacting detail. It would take the mechanical excellence to visualise the work of the movie and slot it together in a way that made sense and was intuitive to play through. The bravery not to scale down on the task, but to commit to cramming the castle's every nook and cranny somewhere into the explorable game world. And of course the creativity and initiative to design a plethora of random encounters between rabble-rousing students, duelling attic ghosts, one banister-sliding poltergeist and a now-famous pair of sentient suits of armour- in order to breathe a degree of life into those halls.

I can happily report that the achievement of Hogwarts alone is every bit the wonder I hoped it to be, and that when I bought the game expecting the worst I had convinced myself the price of admission would be worth it for the virtual tour of Hogwarts alone and I still stand true to that assessment. I understand it's another symptom of irrational nostalgia to get all fuzzy-hearted when walking out into that courtyard where Professor Umbridge would one day aggressively eject Trelawney from the castle, just before walking out across that famous crooked bridge atop which Ron would one day turn around and say "Who are you and what did you do to Hermione Granger?" I have these memories close to that pale diseased throbbing thing I keep locked behind my lungs, and their warmth responds to seeing these locations faithfully brought to digital life with a fluttering whimsy probably unique to others like myself. I understand if that doesn't quite translate to the older generation who approach this game, nor the newer, but I can recognise that twinkle in the eye of another around my age who spots that one special moment they remember so well because in that moment they, like me, get it.

Of course, for whatever reason this digital tour game had an RPG attached to the package, so I might as well get around to reviewing that as well, eh? Right away the first thing the game places in front of the player... is actually the accessibility options screen. (They just shove those options right in your noggin, it's quite the jumpscare.) But after that we get to character creation and as far as finally realising my dream of being my own Wizard in the Harry Potter mythos- the customizer if fine. Nothing great, but better than Destiny. The character models themselves all look exceptionally high quality, which is good considering the player character's mug is slapped centre screen for the majority of the run time, but I was very surprised about the apparent lack of body size options. (My dreams of roleplaying as Gandalf Cartman have been shattered!)

However as far as 'Role Playing' goes, character customisation- which extends to wand choice, picking your house and later playing fashionista, seems to be the extent to which the developers wanted to explore that genre. (Outside of the levelling tree.) If you're hoping to mould the personality of your unique Witch or Wizard through branches of meaningful choices that have rippling consequences throughout the runtime- you're going to be caught very dry. What few choices the game provides are largely inconsequential or simply just mission reward extortion choices that also don't appear to have any consequences. Nearer the end you do get a few choices, some that actually would have an impact if this game had any sort of epilogue showing them off, but I suppose that empty space is being left open for the sequel that Warner Bros. seems very enthused to embark on already.

From the outset of the narrative you are introduced as a late-inductee fifth year to Hogwarts, and just like your character the game very much expects you to catch up to the pace of the plot without much prior explaining. You would have thought that the writers would use the excuse of a new kid haphazardly thrust into the world of Wizards and Witches to deftly introduce them, and the players, to the state of the wizarding world in the 1800's. (A setting totally alien to all Potter fans before this game) But instead we get a rather hasty "Follow me and figure it out" style introduction. It was about five hours into the game before I accepted a side quest in which a goblin character was kind enough to lay out who this villainous Ranrok even was and his whole deal. Which seems a bit like a misstep for the storytellers. Shouldn't I know the most basic details of the main villain- what is this, Dark Souls? (These references are getting out of hand. I'm going to have to get a 'Miyazaki' jar in my room if this keeps up.) 

Exploring the world and trying to piece together the basic lore are only two pillars of the Hogwarts Legacy package: Combat is the third. Hogwarts Legacy uses a vaguely Arkham inspired system of attack and response with basic casting, blocking and rolling: It's a deceptively simple set-up that can quickly spiral into chaos when surrounded by 15 goblins all chucking arrows and slashing for your throat! Where the systems blossom out a bit is with the specific named spells that you can learn throughout the game by attending school quests and completing cleverly designed 'school assignments' that nudge the player to try out newly introduced systems in combat or open world exploration tasks. These spells are pretty much the lifeblood pumping through the combat system which makes fighting an army of wizards feel so alive and dynamic.

Spells are freely mapped to a four-piece quick select (with further quick select options unlocked in the RPG tree) and operate on a cool-down timer; to compensate, these spells all have thematically appropriate unique effects on opponents in battle. Accio summons enemies to float helplessly before you, Depulso does the exact opposite- sending those same enemies flying, Arresto Momentum pauses them in a brief stasis, Diffindo shoots violent slices through the air; all these spells operate in a unique fashion. Now at first the only purpose of these spells is really to break through specific magical 'Protego' variants on enemies, which are handily colour coded with the 'category' of spell needed to shatter them. But as you become more powerful and unlock more talents some of these spells become specifically useful to certain situations requiring an almost intrinsic knowledge of which spell is mapped to which slot in which set of quick spells.

For example, Descendo is used to pick up enemies and slam them roughly into the ground, however you can also use it on a giant spider at the moment it rears up its head for an unblockable attack in order to take advantage of it's momentum and bury it's head in the ground, rendering it completely stunned for a flurry of free hits. The giant toads can be caught in the middle of their jabbing tongue attack with a quickly timed 'Levioso' which suspends them by that appendage, and if you follow that up with a cruelly timed Diffindo you'll slice right through that suspended tongue pretty much instantly killing them. These dynamic combat opportunities don't readily present themselves with handy button prompts or scripted action sequences, but are rather encouraged with dynamically spawning combat challenges and left up for the player to discover and exploit; conferring a sense of real intuitive ingenuity when you pull them off.

Of course, like all games with a combat style of it's ilk, Hogwarts Legacy does feature it's own 'press to do cool thing' meter; and this time around it's called the 'Ancient Magic' skill. Ancient Magic is essentially a finisher move built up by securing a combo in the tens and then collecting the glowing particles that shoot out of the enemy as a result. (which is a little bit of a clunky way to fill a special meter in my opinion, I shouldn't have to break my combat flow to work up towards a finisher.) The reward is a flashy and exciting burst of 'Ancient Magic' which can do anything from summon a bolt of lightning on the enemies heads to permanently polymorphing them into poultry, to just straight blasting them off into the middle distance. All mostly horrifically lethal ways for a school child to handle their battles, but as long as there's no blood (and there isn't) we can just brush by the brutality of it all. (Although some of the post combat flavour text does imply that we are knowing and happily killing these goblins and dark wizards. There's no Yakuza-level "As long as I don't acknowledge they're definitely dead, then maybe they're not!" No, these fools are buried.) 

Now one of my favourite aspects of the Hogwarts Legacy package is the fact that the very same diversity in combat I boasted about thanks to the variety of spells, is present in exploration thanks to these same, versatile, spells. The checklist open world of Hogwarts Legacy is littered with puzzles and challenges that all require understanding and manipulation of your spell list to conquer, and most of the time whenever you're up against these challenges the game has enough faith in it's systems and how it has introduced them to the player for it to just leave us without any hints or overly telegraphed solutions. Some of these puzzles, between the Merlin Trials and the Magic hot spots, and even just some randomly dotted caves, feature really free-form puzzles to test your understanding of your magical toolkit, from figuring out where to levitate certain objects to become floating platforms, to working out what statues should be blasted apart and which should be repaired, to figuring out shadow-based locks and fire-urn patterns. (This world has a lot more puzzle variety than any Elder Scrolls game has boasted so far.) As a card-carrying Hitman lover, I simply adore that level of mutually shared player-developer trust. This is how open world games should handle puzzles.

Unfortunately, the rewards for a lot of these puzzles, or at least the puzzles not specifically tied to a Field Guide challenge to increase Ancient Magic slots or Inventory spots, tie into what I consider to be this game's weakest aspect: it's loot. Yes, Hogwarts Legacy features a looting system borrowed right out of Destiny or any number of those 'gear power level' styles of games with their endless pointless rarity systems and level-locked stat increases and bonus effects and more development effort then was really required to a system that adds nothing to the core experience. Hogwarts Legacy has mechanics for improving gear and slotting enchantments and all that 'Live Service' guff, but it's all functionally meaningless in action because the combat is already neatly balanced. You do appropriate damage to creatures your level and most every overworld enemy scales to your exact level anyway; rendering skill scores largely redundant. Occasionally you'll meet an open world boss who's scaled higher than you, but in those situations your little buff to your legendary school robes doesn't do much of anything- should you choose to engage in that fight, (And I suspect that the main campaign alone requires you to fight a few enemies far above your level) you're just in for a slog fest against a sponge-tank whether you like it or not.

The one aspect of loot which is worth collecting, however, is the fashion aspect of it. All loot is formed as clothing- (except for gold, some potions and some enchantments) and that clothing can be utilised to fashion your Hogwarts student however you wish. Lending itself appropriately to the theme, Hogwarts Legacy features a totally free 'Transmog' system so you can change the appearance of any piece of gear to look like any clothing item you've acquired in the past; and with dozens of some decently high quality and varied options to choose between, Legacy actually offers a surprisingly varied pool of customisation options, making the fashion aspect of loot more interesting than the gear stats. Some quests in the game seem to acknowledge how much more significant visual appeal is, with the recovery of some legendary piece of clothing rewarding the player with the Transmog option for that clothing rather than some quickly out-levelled hunk of gear itself. (The only annoying aspect of Transmog is that it doesn't transfer when you put on a new piece of gear which is a bit of a headache in a game that expects you to gear swap as often as this one.)

Whilst we're on the topic of 'weak points', I'd like to highlight one of the most annoying openworld elements being the 'Demiguise' collectibles and how 'Alohomora' works. The unlocking spell is frustratingly tied to the recovery of dozens of these tiny Demiguise statues that are scattered across the world inside and out of Hogwarts and can only be collected at night. I've scoured locations said to contain them, but because of how small they are even the Revelio charm seems to have trouble highlighting the things for collection, making them already a hassle to collect. Then when you get your reward, the ability to open locked doors, you'll be disappointed to learn that Alohomora is simply a gateway to a lockpicking minigame! The minigame itself isn't hard, but it's just a unnecessary roadblock to the progression of your spell-crafting process. Isn't the spell supposed to be doing the lock-picking for me? Why slow down exploration for the benefit of no one? 

At least the team made up for that with the freedom of traversal options, particularly that of the broom. The first time you get on the broom and zoom around Hogwarts with the swell of the orchestra, it really does hit on all the right notes to be a truly magical moment. That spectacle may not last, but the acute beauty of this game world from the skies does warrant an appreciative pause and nod even at that game's twilight hours. Truly, giving the players freedom to whip out that broomstick and take to the clouds at nearly any moment was the right decision. I only wish that some of the outdoor walkways at Hogwarts had more take-off and land options; its' annoying having to search for a courtyard to go sky surfing. As for the other modes of transport, flying mounts and ground mounts- pretty unremarkable, honestly. They're too slow to be worth it and the creatures don't display the level of personality that, say, Red Dead animals do- so I'm not as attached to my summonable Thestral as I am to my old-school broom.

But the creatures of this world do have a purpose other than riding thanks to the extensive 'Room of Requirement' metagame built alongside the rest of Hogwarts Legacy. This space for base building and potion crafting acts as more of a base of operations than the player's house common room does. (The common room is actually surprisingly underutilised throughout the whole game.) You can build spells to buff or heal you in combat, grow plants to whip out as consumable combat accessories or, yes, rescue magical creatures from poachers and store them in your 'Fantastic Beasts' inspired Vivarium. I do think the range of potions and plants available to the player is a little meagre, but combat already had enough going on I suppose, keeping potions and plants simple was probably a mindful exercise in restraint.

The Vivarium collection of creatures is really one of the larger side activities that Hogwarts Legacy has to offer, with the wider open world just covered in animal dens and poacher camps and questlines that touch on some of rarest magical creatures around. There's not so much depth that the player is ever at danger of being lost in these systems, and not quite enough rare and hidden magical monster for my tastes, but being able to care for and breed the creatures available is enough to feel appropriately involved in this aspect of the Wizarding world. Plus, interacting with a variety of cute beasts is fun in any game under any circumstance, which is probably why this game also features a 'pet' button for the many cats scattered across the world. (No dogs from what I saw. Guess the preference war landed with the felines this time around.) There is certainly room to expand upon this feature in a sequel, perhaps with greater creature variety or valid habitat preference, but what's there is entirely serviceable.

In narrative, Hogwarts Legacy attempts to pay homage to the source material with a largely mystery-based story revolving around just how special the player character is for some reason they don't quite understand. It's quite formulaic and lacks in surprise, and the villains have very pond-deep levels of depth about them- but neither really detracts from the true wonder: living out the life of Hogwarts. You'll meet and interact with a variety of students and teachers and come to really care about a few of your closet friends through questlines that are extensive and decently interesting. I found Natty's backstory to be quite heartfelt and charged and I think Sebastian's story is actually more interestingly written and executed than the main campaign itself! However the lack of a meaningfully defined main character for these well written characters to bounce off does make this emotional outpours feel a little one-sided a lot of the time. There's only so many times I can hear my character perform the "That's awful" platitude voice before it starts to grate at me. I also wish some of the teachers were better explored with their own questlines and backstories, as most don't really have any interactions with the player beyond their class. Of course, I also know there's a certain sector of the community who further wishes we got the chance to explore Professor Garlick a bit closer, if you catch my meaning.

In spectacle I think the main narrative does a fine job cementing itself in the moments it wants to, the extended puzzle dungeons were a little dry but the 'Deathly Hallows' storybook scene totally scrubbed the floor with the typical 'dream sequence' Ubisoft moment that every open world is beholden to since Far Cry 3. However the core questline stretches itself to last over the school year and many times the only excuse for putting the main story on the back burner is literally "I have an appointment in London so please put your destiny on hold until I get back" or "Give me a couple of months to research that painfully vague clue you were just given." Some of the companion side questlines borrow this formula too, and whilst format-wise I appreciate the way this approach relieves pressure on the player and permits them to go exploring, it feels like a lazy crutch for halting momentum and tension.

There are boss encounters in the game, but a lot of them are reused and lack any really creative element to them beyond animation sets; which seems almost criminal considering the amount of spells on hand in combat. Why not have a boss in an impenetrable metal encasing that can only be hurt once the metal is heated up, or a dive-bombing winged boss who needs to be forcibly dragged down to the ground atop their own payload in order to damage them? There is incredible potential for boss creativity that just goes utterly wasted and I'm genuinely shocked the team didn't bother go down this route even once. At least the final boss is memorable for mere spectacle alone- if the rest of the bosses had a bit more going on with them, I would have been largely happy with that as the finale anyway.

Now a topic I don't usually cover in these reviews is the technical issues, and that's because my computer is a relic from the Antebellum age and any issues I encounter are typically not representative of the general audience. That being said, I happen to know I'm not the only one who had to sit through a prolonged 'Shader Compiling' sequence whenever I launched the game. I know there's already a mod that skips it, but it's amazing to me that the shaders aren't locked in after the initial launch- and that we still get shader stutters in game! (Although the stutters might just be a me problem) The game also has some basic progression bugs in some of the questlines too, usually the ones that require a cell switch. Most of them can be worked around, the 'abandon quest' function is helpful for restarting after a sequence gets broken which I had to use once or twice; (Specifically with Sebastian refusing to spawn in the Undercroft on certain occasions.) but I wouldn't call such sporadic roadblocks 'endemic'.

Summary

Hogwarts Legacy is in many ways the game that we dreamt about playing in the highs of the Harry Potter age and yet in some other ways it still falls just that bit short of the perfect image we all imagined. What makes me so passionate about summarising it is simply that with everything the game commits to, in it's exploration, combat and side activities, the developers at Avalanche excelled in creating robust mechanics that feel fun to interact with and learn from. Playing through Hogwarts Legacy leaves me with the feeling that all the correct tools are in the toy box to create that legendary game, but the team literally just ran out of time to put it all together; which is a prospect that makes me ever so excited for the sequel that has all but been announced thanks to the runaway success of Hogwarts Legacy commercially. The game I played was genuinely great, but with a more daring narrative, greater choice and consequence, deeper side activities and more creative enemy design- I genuinely believe this series could reach sheer excellence on it's next go around. As it stands, the game I played will sing to people nostalgic of the source material, whilst probably falling just short of it's potential for those without those rose tinted spectacles equipped. Potter lovers have to buy this game, it's simply a must- but others should temper their expectation for an above-average open world title with some great ideas in some places and a few wanting ideas in others. Ultimately this makes for a difficult title to appropriately rate, which is why I would have to revert to the classic cheap-out of double scoring. Potter fans should treat this game with all the respect that an -A Grade demands, whilst others are probably looking at more of a B Grade game on my arbitrary and increasingly esoteric rating system. Hogwarts Legacy is one of those games I never dreamed would ever be made back in the day, so it feels almost callous to want for more still but I know the muddy bones of a potential masterpiece are buried in this solid game. Still, now I feel empowered to vie for the realisation of some of my other dream projects: fighting game that crossovers every single fictional pop-culture character in existence with appropriate power levels and embracing how broken that would be, when?

The Hogwarts conundrum

 Whatever do we do about a situation called Rowling?

I have to hand it to Hogwarts Legacy, not only has it proven to be a much more enjoyable game than my nagging doubts tried to tell me over the past year, it has skyrocketed to the top of a moral balancing act that I never once foresaw it having a take in. The conundrum of whether or not the game deserves to be in the targets of everyone and their mother is now moot, because the die has been cast and the hunting rifles drawn- now those who play need to keep up their guard lest they become clay pigeons. And that is no idle comparison, as am I soon to divulge in this here dip into the world of 'moral accountability', as I believe the appropriate term to be. And of course, I care little for either extreme of this diatribe- consider this a space for safe and judgement-free observation of both sides gathered for bloody and brutal war over their keyboards.

Now I won't go over the specifics, we've done that enough. So to generalise and expediate: J.K. Rowling is considered problematic and thus so is this game that is based on the property that made her the richest author in the living world. (I cannot speak to the resplendent riches of the literarily denizens of the golden fields of the Duat or murky pools of Hades.) As such many people are making a very staunch stand not to support the proliferation of this game, nor those who choose to play it, from loud individuals on Twitter to actual established review sites. Now in the lead-up to the game coming out there was much discourse about the extent of these 'boycotts', some seemed to think their side the authority on the matter and those of the other persuasion to not only be fundamentally misaligned but also small and forgetful in scale. Both were wrong.

Hogwarts Legacy pre-ordered and sold absolute gangbusters as far as initial and preliminary results are telling us, as the call for Boycotts and blacklists just seemed to melt into the excitement over a title that so many Pot-head millennials had for a not-mediocre Harry Potter style game. (Sorry 'Order of the Phoenix' on Wii, but facts are facts.) And yet the opposed did not let their choice not to purchase the game bounce harmlessly off the, from their perspective, insultingly healthy sales figures. Instead their number has... somewhat dropped the moral high ground in favour of... actually threatening people? Okay, of course the crazy actions of a few shall not and should not paint the opinions of all, or in this case even the many, but neither does that mean we shouldn't arch a brow and ask where these sorts of wild offshoots might have spawned from in a movement that originally just wanted to limit the amount of money that J.K got her hands on.

I'm speaking of course about the website which was created, though it is currently shut down, where people tracked down streamers and influential figures that have played Hogwarts Legacy and collected them in a list in order to harass these individuals. Now in their warped and twisted little logic trains I can sort of follow what's going on here; they see the proliferation of Hogwarts Legacy gameplay as a direct attack against the Trans community, and maybe even solely as an attack, rather than a celebration of a franchise they love. I also imagine there's that layer of dehumanisation between the public and content creators taking an effect here, where people fail to really empathise what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a harassment hitlist. All and all, I wouldn't call this the proudest moment of the anti-Hogwarts Legacy crowd.

Apart from that the discourse has been largely what you expect, verbal discharge all over social media with the vitriol and disgust regularly shared against an audience that seems either oblivious or discordant with their prescribed titles. Because here's the thing: for the most part players are seen as unrepentant transphobes who rally their hatred against the community in the act of downloading 'the wizard game' as they call it. Whereas for the most part people seem utterly uncommitted to the discourse and just like the game. Either that or they're intentionally goading on the masses in order to take advantage of the flurry of attention and clout. Because there is no resource quite as valuable in the modern age as liquid clout, now is there?

What I have had course to review as a result of this situation is my own lines in the sand when it comes to gamers engaging with products that I deem to be harmful to the larger ecosystem. Though I'd never go to the extremes that some of these individuals have, I do cast a judging eye on the millions who keep the Fifa games in furs and cotton year after year, all the while being served a topic emblematic of laconic and lazy 'bare minimum' iteration. What makes my prejudice any more earned and worthy than that of the Hogwarts Legacy Witch hunters? Afterall, in both cases we're just talking about people who want to enjoy games and care nothing about the vitriol around it. Well in my personal example the answer is actually frightfully simple. I'm selfish.

I could care less what sort of low effort garbage the masses rush to, they can play whatever they wish, but the second their purchasing decisions starts to effect me; then I have a problem. We all saw the way that the runaway success of football games, lionized by an uncaring audience who haply consumed their 'gruel' called 'content'; bled it's practises all over the rest of the industry. Season passes, random loot crates, franchise-mania. A lot of the most insidious and pernicious snapping tendencies of the gaming corporate titans got their beta test on the football turf. When I say that people who support Fifa are spitting at the general art of games whether they mean to or not, I have empirical as well as circumstantial evidence to back up my claims. That's as far as my personal vendetta goes.

The Hogwarts situation has been much louder than anyone could have rightly predicted, and I think that might be because of how ubiquitous the game appears to be becoming. Everyone is playing it and everyone seems to be having a fun time, which is further enraging those who believe they have a moral commitment to trash on the game because they believe that they are losing. So what do you do when your side is losing? You get more viscous, you drop those constraints of polite posturing that were holding you back, and you become something less. Something feral. That is what I believe is happening within the world of Hogwarts discourse. All we can hope is that the depths have already been reached, because otherwise we know how low the Internet can sink when they're driven on by that unshakable force called 'moral virtue'.