The wizarding world has never felt more alive than in Hogwarts Legacy. When I was first allowed to explore Hogwarts, I was overcome by the intense detail in every corner. Students chatting away, playing games, and eating meals in the Great Hall while various magical props do their job never ceases to amaze. Then I realized just how far the open world extends beyond the castle, and the level of detail never lets up.
Hogsmeade is there in all its glory, a fairy-tale village with crooked buildings, magical street performers, and an overabundance of colorful shops. Step into said shops and the wonder continues. Clothing stores with magical moving mannequins – and not the scary Skyrim kind – pose gracefully in the windows. Head over to Honeydukes sweet shop and you wolf down a whole treacle tart in one bite and then take some candy that makes you levitate. Or, if you’d rather get the authentic British pub experience, pop into the Hog’s Head and get drooled on by a living pig head trophy hung on the wall.
Then venture out into the highlands and dive into treasure-filled caves, puzzles that will put your magical knowledge to the test, and encampments full of dark wizards and dastardly poachers. Although, perhaps stay out of the Forbidden Forest if you’re not fond of spiders. Still, the sights are breathtaking as you ride high in the sky while the sun sets behind the spires of Hogwarts castle.
It’s a dense open world that you’ll see go through all four seasons during your adventure, and it never stops being enjoyable to explore. The hand-crafted care that’s gone into every inch of it is clear for all to see. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never read a word of Harry Potter, you’ll feel the magic.
If you’re wondering how life as a student feels, it’s a little bit of Bully and Fable rolled into one. As you progress as a wizard you’ll learn a variety of spells that will aid you in your quest to uncover the mysteries of the ancient magic that you, and only you, can wield. You’ll have chances to express yourself along the way with choices, although these don’t have much of an effect on the narrative. Options often boil down to “agree” or “agree with a snarky remark”.
At the very start of the game, one of your professors will ask you to keep your activities a secret, and even if you keep your lips sealed, your character will just blurt it out when the story requires it anyway, and the consequences are non-existent.
Still, this is a game about wizards, so let’s talk about the magic system, which is one of the best that’s ever been – Forspoken who? Sure, you can’t cave the sky in on top of someone’s head, but you still feel the power in every cast. If you’ve ever played the Batman: Arkham or Shadow of Mordor games then you’ll find this system surprisingly familiar – it’s all about dodging and countering, waiting for the moment to unleash your magical might.
You hit your basic four-hit combo with all the flourish of someone who spent far too much time in their bedroom rehearsing how to look cool with a wand, and as you cast more powerful spells, your character really sells the effort that goes into producing such magic. All the spells feel unique too. You can freeze an opponent in their tracks, pull them into the air, send them flying, and then slam them into the ground with a force that turns their bones to paste. It’s almost a little too brutal when you consider you’re playing as a teenage school kid, but the overwhelming power you can wield has an intoxicating feeling.
That said, it’s a little hard to look past all the killing you do. Giant spiders are one thing – they deserve to die – but you also end the lives of many humans and goblins. They’re baddies, sure, but given how much importance the main Harry Potter series put on how the good guys almost never kill, it’s tonally quite strange.
Speaking of goblins, some of the more problematic sides of the wizarding world do show their ugly faces. The goblin rebellion is unironically referred to as “the goblin problem” at one point, and the horrific treatment of house elves who insist that they like being in servitude is allowed to go past our characters without question. If you’re familiar with this universe, then maybe you can let that slide, but when your customizable base in the Room of Requirement lets you mount the heads of dead elves onto the wall, that’s crossing a line.
There are seemingly some protests against book author J.K. Rowling in there though. There is a character who hints that she used to be a wizard before becoming a witch, plus the character creator gives you complete freedom over who you want to be. No matter your body type, you can pick whichever voice you prefer, and you’re allowed to choose whether you sleep in the witch or wizard dorms at school.
When you first learn of the crafting mechanics in this game, you may roll your eyes, but it’s exceptionally well implemented. In your Room of Requirement, you can set up a bunch of planters to grow your own potion ingredients before hopping over to big brewing stations where you can create potions with a couple of button presses. The timers are just right too. Once you set everything up, you’ll be able to pop back between missions to restock before setting out again.
Getting materials for gear upgrades is nice too. You don’t have to go hunting or kill any beasts. Instead, you find them out in the wild and rescue them from the many poachers roaming the lands. Then you can take your beasts into your very own Vivarium where they can roam free and let you care for them. As a reward for good care, you get the materials you need for upgrades.
That said, the Room of Requirement loads up your spell count quite significantly with magic that is useless anywhere else in the game. It would’ve been nice for the room to have its own spell selection that was automatically activated when you entered the room, rather than having to manually assign and unassign the spells every time.
Your classes make a difference in your journey too. It’s not a Persona-style life sim by any stretch, but they serve as mini-tutorials on your key abilities and spells, with fun minigames that show you how to get the most from your magic. On top of that, learning new spells is tied to assignments set by your professors. It keeps you engaged with Hogwarts as a school, and will keep bringing you back to class.
There’s a small handful of bugs and the writing can be a bit dodgy at times, but Hogwarts Legacy is still one of the best open-world games out there. It’s no Elden Ring, but it takes the work of series like Assassin’s Creed and builds on it, injecting greater mission variety, exploration, and engaging characters to stand out from the crowd. Given Avalanche Software’s less than stellar history with tie-in games, I wouldn’t blame you if you were skeptical about Hogwarts Legacy, but it easily exceeds expectations and cements itself as the best game in the Harry Potter universe to date.
Written by Ryan Woodrow on behalf of GLHF.
