A gigantic blockbuster game in which you get to go to Harry Potter school Hogwarts as a sorcerer’s apprentice. box office, publisher Warner Bros. Games thought about five years ago: it can hardly go wrong. But writer JK Rowling’s involvement in the transgender debate has cooled the feelings of many millennials. There have been calls for a boycott of Hogwarts Legacy for months, the major gamer forum Resetera banned all discussion of the game. “Rowling actively promotes anti-transgender legislation,” wrote the site to accountability. The criticism of Rowling’s opinion also led to criticism of the books: critics, for example, pointed to house elves being happy as slaves.
It won’t matter much to other gamers. Hogwarts Legacy clearly aims its arrows at this nostalgic millennial: the cast has been made diverse – in line with the requirements of our time – and Avalanche Studios simply recreates every detail from books and films.
It produces a game that exudes an incredible amount of atmosphere. Hogwarts is a beautiful, magical behemoth, full of little details like self-moving brooms and talking portraits. In every cave there is a secret to discover. If you step out of the castle, a large open world awaits.
You gradually learn spells, both to fight and to solve puzzles. That keeps combat interesting – with the push of a button an enemy flies into the air, after which you can attack him with fire spells, for example. Then you use the same flying spell again to make a suitcase fly. If there’s one thing to complain about, it’s that there are too many spells; at some point you are constantly changing.
Roam around Hogwarts
It is clear that an incredible amount of time has been put into these elements, to really give players the feeling that they are walking around Hogwarts. But beyond that, Avalanche doesn’t seem to have thought through what this game should be. Hogwarts Legacy does exactly the same as every major open world game of recent years. Usual open world things like decorating houses, collecting objects, and riding horses have only been given a thin Harry Potter sauce.
The comparison with school game Bully (2006) is easily made. Bully was able to involve players in the school, for example by forcing them to go to class twice a day. In Hogwarts Legacy, the teacher is only there as a return point, after which you can get a new spell. We are clearly not supposed to immerse ourselves too much in school life. It is that we – frustratingly – go on the road endlessly to make side steps, because otherwise you will not reach the right level to continue.
The story is also disappointing. Voice actors sound flat, characters hardly have facial expressions and only rarely an interesting storyline with any emotional impact. Given the increasing criticism of Rowling’s work, the main story will also raise some eyebrows. We’re up against a group of goblin freedom fighters who are angry that wizards have been oppressing their kind for years. But yes, the goblins don’t do that in the right way, so something needs to be done about it.
It draws a game that wants to imitate JK Rowlings’ work, but has nothing else to say about it. Great for the fan who has nothing to do with the criticism; lovers with a twinge of conscience can let this game go without hesitation.
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