Hogwarts Legacy Review

Smart fan service, satisfying combat, and an impressive Hogwarts make this the definitive Harry Potter fantasy…

Hogwarts Legacy brilliantly captures the magic of the world of Harry Potter with its beautiful open world, engaging characters and exciting combat. [Hogwarts Legacy killing curse](https://www.videogameschronicle.com/guide/hogwarts-legacy-avada-kedavra-how-to-get-the-killing-curse/) [Hogwarts Legacy Hippogriff](https://www.videogameschronicle.com/guide/hogwarts-legacy-hippogriff-mount/) As much an icon of the franchise as Harry Potter, Hogwarts itself is an incredible location for the game, and it’s impossible not to lose yourself in its scale, both physically and metaphorically. It’s reverent to a franchise without having to play the hits. For example, in one mission, I tracked a woman’s lost brother down, only to find that he’d met a sticky end at the hands of the living dead, Inferi. While both mega franchises had to wait a few decades, they each deliver a huge, excellent video game adaptation that is almost exactly what fans had been asking for since the early 2000s. This is also somewhat frustrating when exploring, and we’d wished there had been an option for a more distant, overhead camera, or the ability to cycle through several different distances depending on the situation, such as in modern [Avalanche Software](https://www.videogameschronicle.com/companies/avalanche-software/)‘s game due to her publicly-stated, harmful views regarding the rights of transgender people. Spellcasting is used for combat and puzzle solving, with most new spells being taught to the player at specific points throughout the main story, and some being offered as optional extras in the game’s back half, (including fan favourite Flippendo). Enemies have a significant amount of health, even on normal difficulty, so combat can sometimes become a frantic firework display of spells flying across the battlefield, but in general, it’s largely readable, and the spellcasting itself is very satisfying. It’s soon apparent that your magical powers aren’t simply restricted to turning your classmates into ferrets and changing the colour of your pet rat, but a deep connection with ancient magic buried deep within Hogwarts.

In almost every way, Hogwarts Legacy is the Harry Potter RPG many have always wanted.

However, if you’re as much of a loot hoarder as I am and were hoping to gather up all the treasures in the world and dump them in a closet like in Skyrim you’ll be painfully disappointed by Legacy’s abysmal inventory space, which only lets you hold a couple dozen items and aggravatingly fills up in no time at all. This means you’ll miss out on tons of items early on unless you go to your menu and decide which precious treasure to throw overboard every time you open a chest. I will say though, with the wizarding buffet of endless ways to waste your time, it’s a pretty glaring omission that Quidditch is nowhere to be found. None of it is particularly game-changing stuff, but it managed to capture my attention enough for me to spend a good chunk of time looking at my equipment. I was able to get through the main story in 32 hours, but even though I was in something of a hurry to complete it I found staying on task almost impossible. Because you can only have so many spells equipped at any time, the one part of combat that’s a bit of a drag is the somewhat clunky process for switching between, which takes some serious getting used to. What’s especially weird is that it’s not like there aren’t other enemy types to be found in Legacy – you’ll find giant, evil frogs and zombies roaming about, to name a few – it’s just that they’re scarcely used in any of the main dungeons or levels. It’s a huge and important part of the Hogwarts fantasy that Legacy just knocks out of the park. That’s a shame, since the Harry Potter universe is known for having all manner of beasts and villains to face off against, and yet here there’s practically no variety. It’s understandable since there’s so much packed into this beast of an adventure, but the PS5’s promises of the death of loading screens haven’t quite been lived up to here as it’s clearly struggling to keep up with the spellcraft and whimsy of the Wizarding World. But none of these has come close to fulfilling that fantasy of receiving a Hogwarts admission letter that opens the door to a secret world. Unexpectedly, I even found myself looking forward to hanging out with my professors, whether it was my main man Professor Fig, who serves as both something of a mentor and as a sidekick, or the wise-cracking charms teacher Professor Ronen, who made me love him mostly by making fun of me.

What makes doing that so easy is the sense that Hogwarts Legacy comes from a place of immense love. The hundreds of people at Avalanche Software who made the ...

Finally there is a proper simulator of the school of witchcraft and wizardry, allowing you to create your own student, attend classes, and explore the vast landscape outside. With a truly terrible map of Hogwarts on top, the menus can be a chore to rummage through. You can feel when a particularly powerful charm has been used, and your footsteps are turned into vibrations on either side of the controller at opportune moments. What lets the package down to a degree is the character models, but then there are some nice faces dotted about Hogwarts (particularly the teachers) that make up for the personalities not taking up much screen time. Navigation of them is poor and slow, with a A cast of new teachers and students support your studies and adventures, with the house you pick playing a small part in who you meet. The Room of Requirement provides that home base, which can be customised to your liking with various decals and ornaments. It makes the system really easy to pick up and start downing enemies immediately, with environmental attacks and ancient magic letting you really strut your stuff. Hogwarts Legacy by no means reinvents the genre, and you could quite easily compare it to a typical All the classic spells you remember from the books and movies return, letting you interact with the environment to uncover secrets and blast bad guys. The hundreds of people at Avalanche Software who made the game are the same ones that have been calling for a Hogwarts simulator for a generation. What makes doing that so easy is the sense that Hogwarts Legacy comes from a place of immense love.

We've been attending classes at Hogwarts in the game Hogwarts Legacy. Come check out our review to see if it if lives up to the hype!

Naturally you can use them to brew up powerful healing draughts, but there are a few that you can use in combat, such as the Chomping Cabbages and the like that can attack or stun your foes directly. A great deal of care and attention was paid to building the mystery, and it’s held up remarkably well thus far. Time to head to the Room of Requirement. I was also pleased to see such a wide variety of clever puzzles in the game. There are plenty more to find, but all of them are in service of what you’ll face in the real world. These correspond to the spells you have that are also categorized by color. Your character needs to look the part at school, and wow is there a lot of gear to do precisely that. You can also earn Talents in the game to augment your powers. Combined with a Leviosa spell, you can block an incoming missile, counter with a stun, lift a foe in the air, and then finish them with a series of basic attacks. Just like in the books and movies, your wizard or witch will need your help to draw the symbol in the air, pressing the buttons indicated at the right time, and with the right tempo, to learn it. As such, beyond the paragraph above that covers the first 15 minutes of the game (and the video above), I’ll be very careful to not reveal any important details of the game whenever possible. The thing that is magical about the Wizarding World isn’t the magic – it’s the sense of wonder.

Being able to wield a wand in the hallowed halls is enchanting, but what's beneath the spell is competent but unspectacular.

Hogwarts Legacy starts to feel like countless open-world games of the past decade once you’ve been playing it for more than 15 hours. In place of that, we have hundreds of things to collect and dark wizards and magical wildlife to battle, and like most open-world games it starts to feel repetitive and meaningless after a while. The story, which revolves around a goblin uprising, is thin and uninteresting, and interrogates nothing about the Dark Arts or the sources of conflict between wizard-kind and other magical denizens. Hogwarts Legacy has so much to work with: it is the product of millions of childhood dreams. When Hogwarts Legacy leans into its role as a wizarding wish-fulfilment simulator, it is – forgive me – enchanting. It is a shame that the game can’t escape this context, because tremendous effort has clearly gone into diversifying Potter’s magical world for a 2023 audience.

Hogwarts Legacy is here, but does the game live up to the hype? Here's what the early reviews have to say.

“Hogwarts Legacy has turned the hopes and dreams of Harry Potter fans into reality. Finally, there is a proper simulator of the school of witchcraft and wizardry, allowing you to create your own student, attend classes, and explore the vast landscape outside. It succeeds at being the dream Harry Potter game that many fans were hoping for, and if nothing else, it creates a rock-solid foundation for future Wizarding World games to be built upon. “In nearly every way, Hogwarts Legacy is the Harry Potter RPG I’ve always wanted to play. It will allow you to explore the grounds of Hogwarts at your leisure, attend classes, be sorted, and generally do most of the things that you dreamed of doing when you read the books. While you’ll have to wait a few days to play the game for yourself (depending on [which version you buy](https://www.denofgeek.com/games/hogwarts-legacy-early-access-start-time-how-to-join-download/), that is), the first reviews of the long-awaited open-world RPG are pouring in.

Here's what the critics think about the highly anticipated open-world Harry Potter game.

Whether it's attending classes, getting lost in the mysterious hallways of Hogwarts, or visiting Ollivander's to pick out the perfect wand, Avalanche has crafted a magical experience that takes you back to the day you first encountered Harry Potter, recapturing all the feelings that came with it." It succeeds at being the dreamHarry Potter game that many fans were hoping for, and if nothing else, it creates a rock-solid foundation for future Wizarding World games to be built upon.Hogwarts Legacy lives up to the hype, and we can confidently say it's the best thing to come out of theHarry Potter franchise since the original books and movies." While the open-world elements of the game make it feel more dated than we'd have liked, it's otherwise the best the Wizarding World has been in a video game." "Hogwarts Legacy brilliantly captures the magic of the world of Harry Potter with its beautiful open world, engaging characters and exciting combat. "It felt like Hogwarts Legacy was always going to struggle to live up to the hype, but somehow Avalanche Software has managed to deliver an absolutely fantastic open world adventure that will surely go down as comfortably the best game based on the Harry Potter franchise so far. Hogwarts Legacy is a fantastic addition to both the franchise and the RPG genre, and an adventure you won't soon forget!" "Hogwarts Legacy is a magical experience that is bound to go down well with fans of the Wizarding World. And if you knowingly weigh the costs and decide that your personal enjoyment of a video game is worth supporting a trans-exclusionary radical feminist, that indulging your nostalgia is more valuable than supporting the transgender community? In this article, you will also find links to trans creators you can support, as well as charities you can donate to. For an even more detailed look at the critical reaction to Hogwarts Legacy, check out GameSpot sister site Fans have been waiting a long time for Hogwarts Legacy, as it was originally slated to arrive in 2021 before being shifted to 2022 and then again to 2023. Reviews for the magical open-world game have begun to appear online ahead of launch.

Hogwarts Legacy lets players live out their Harry Potter fantasies in the form of a massive open world game that exceeds expectations.

Our initial playthrough of Hogwarts Legacy took about 20 hours, and that was with completing all the main story quests and many side quests. This way, players can play through all of Hogwarts Legacy in traditional school robes and not have to walk around with dorky-looking hats simply because they have better stats. In typical open-world fashion, the Hogwarts Legacy map is peppered with activities for players to complete, and while not all of these activities are particularly engaging, one can't complain about having a lack of things to do in the game. There's so much to do in the game that it really ran the risk of collapsing in on itself or feeling half-baked, but everything is polished to a sheen. Hogwarts Legacy is a game that may have benefited from using a silent protagonist, as the main character doesn't have much in the way of a discernible personality and cutting out their pointless dialogue (which usually amounts to "Yes, I agree" or "No, I don't agree" with more words) would have sped things up considerably. One potential problem with having a system like this in Hogwarts Legacy is it forces players to wear items that do not match what a However, Hogwarts Legacy gives players the option to equip items and enjoy their stats without actually displaying them on their character. These problems plague the main quests too, but to a lesser extent, and in general, the main story path offers a lot more variety. Hogwarts Legacy players take on the role of a new Hogwarts student who has a strange connection to a powerful form of ancient magic. There are no real consequences for utilizing Unforgivable Curses, and in fact, Avada Kedavra is necessary to make some of the later fights in the game more tolerable. [Trolls in Hogwarts Legacy](https://gamerant.com/hogwarts-legacy-trolls-harry-potter-philosopher-stone-finisher-combat/) are spell-sponges with absurdly large health bars, especially later in the game, and so the battles against them can turn into 10 to 15-minute affairs. [Hogwarts Legacy combat](https://gamerant.com/hogwarts-legacy-combat-finishers-duels-animation-enemies/) is an exhilarating test of quick thinking and strategy, with players having to act fast to evade incoming attacks while also keeping their combos up.

The Hogwarts Legacy review embargo has lifted, and it turns out a lot of people like being an open-world wizard. The game has been in development for many ...

Finally there is a proper simulator of the school of witchcraft and wizardry, allowing you to create your own student, attend classes, and explore the vast landscape outside. "For good and for ill alike, Hogwarts Legacy feels like the ultimate chance to explore and tour the Wizarding World from the ground up. It looks gorgeous, it’s a joy to play, and being a wizard is just about as fun as we’d always hoped it would be." The deeper you get into the adventure the more vacuous sidequests become, the more monotonous the activities (magical lockpicking is not the one), and the more sparse the environments: Hogwarts Legacy introduces an entirely new area called Poidsear Coast, and it's as barren as it is beautiful. "It's the game all of us Harry Potter fans have dreamed of and deserved for so long. While both mega franchises had to wait a few decades, they each deliver a huge, excellent video game adaptation that is almost exactly what fans had been asking for since the early 2000s. The chance to explore the game’s remarkable recreation of Hogwarts will justify the cost of entry alone for Potter fanatics." Combined with the recognizable Harry Potter musical score, Avalanche has cultivated a special atmosphere that will leave franchise fans completely engrossed. "That combination of lush scenery and apparently limitless things to do within it, lends proceedings a spark that’s long been missing from Harry Potter games. It’s certainly weighed down by technical issues, a lackluster main story, and some poor enemy variety, but even those couldn’t come close to breaking its enchanting spell over me." Review code for this one only arrived a few days before embargo, so some sites have not yet posted reviews, but of those that have the reaction is near-universal positivity. The Hogwarts Legacy review embargo has lifted, and it turns out a lot of people like being an open-world wizard.