Given how merciless modern pop culture is in its exploitation of childhood nostalgia, it’s remarkable there has been no credible attempt at a big-budget Harry Potter video game before now. Hogwarts Legacy has so much to work with: it is the product of millions of childhood dreams. Donning the Sorting Hat and setting foot inside the Gryffindor common room, manipulating the world effortlessly with a wand and fighting dark wizards are all fantasies that it can easily fulfil.
However, among a significant percentage of the millennial contingent that form Potter’s original and most passionate fanbase, JK Rowling’s gender critical views about transgender identity – she is against self-ID, or admitting trans women to some single-sex spaces such as women’s prisons or rape crisis centres – have caused outrage, and this game is the subject of a boycott.
