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As the release of Hogwarts Legacy grows closer, fans of the Harry Potter franchise are anxiously waiting for their chance to live out the life of a Hogwarts student. However, it's hard to ignore the fact that Harry Potter has become an increasingly controversial property, not just for the circumstances surrounding author J.K. Rowling, but of the content of the books themselves.
After decades of scrutiny, fans of Harry Potter have noticed some unfortunate elements of the books' narratives that didn't stand out when they were children. Some issues were minor, while others left readers with a bad taste in their mouths that spoiled the series for them. Hogwarts Legacy would be smart to try and amend some of these issues if they want to create a successful game and narrative.
Updated on January 21st, 2022 by Mayra García: Hogwarts Legacy is one of the most anticipated games of the year, but the franchise is still in the middle of several scandals that will definitely affect the video game's success. We updated this list with more things Hogwarts Legacy should take into consideration if it wants to avoid being one of the most controversial games ever made.
10 Hogwarts Legacy Should Embrace The Source Material Better
As happens with most book-to-film adaptations, the Harry Potter movies missed the mark and left out some fan favorites. From characters that fans really wanted to see, like Peeves the Poltergeist, to interesting creatures like Blast-Ended Skrewts, the movie franchise disappointed some Potterheads.
The video game has the opportunity to correct this huge mistake. Since Hogwarts Legacy aims to be an immersive experience, it must include as many characters and magical beasts as possible. After all, the franchise has hundreds of options to choose from.
9 Hogwarts Legacy Needs Better World-Building
The world of Harry Potter was never crafted with the same attention to detail as Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea or J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. Instead, J.K. Rowling seemed to favor making elements of her world up as she went along. In children's literature, it's usually more than acceptable to create a world that doesn't quite hold up to scrutiny.
However, when it comes time to translate that world into an immersive experience like Hogwarts Legacy, this could create issues. Developers will have to be very careful to create a world that feels authentic while navigating the established world's existing contradictions.
8 Hogwarts Legacy Needs To Prioritize interesting Spellcasting
Earlier Harry Potter novels did a good job of making magic duels feel somewhat creative. As the series continued, though, the heroes mostly relied on dodging behind cover to avoid spells that were essentially bullets reskinned as jets of light.
If Hogwarts Legacy wants to justify its existence as a game where players become wizards and witches, it will need to give players more than a 3rd person shooter with wands. Hopefully, players will get to utilize magic in creative ways far beyond shooting beams of light at one another.
7 Hogwarts Legacy Needs Clearer Rules For Its Magic
When writers create fantasy worlds, magic shouldn't be just used as a narrative device. Unfortunately, Harry Potter occasionally fell into this trap. For example, Patronuses went from Dementor fighting tools to long-distance messengers without warning or explanation.
As a video game, Hogwarts Legacy is going to need to be a little more firm in establishing the rules for its magic system. The creative team will need to establish exactly what spells do to avoid confusion over the ever-changing nature of the wizarding world's magic.
6 Harry Potter Has A Shaky Grasp Of Consent
Characters are victimized by mind control of many kinds throughout the Harry Potter stories. From love potions to the Imperious Curse, both heroes and villains use magic to dominate their opponents' will. Hogwarts Legacy is an RPG, so it's important that the player character maintains their agency at all times. Love potions and mind control magic will need to be handled with care to avoid the movies' mistakes.
5 Time-Turners Are Bad For Stories
The third Harry Potter book introduced magical time machines called time-turners and it was a big mistake. The implications of wizards being able to time travel are bad enough, but in a series where the protagonist was so deeply impacted by personal loss, easy access to time travel takes readers out of the narrative.
If Hogwarts Legacy wants to avoid players feeling like their story has no impact, they'd do well to steer clear of time-turners. As soon as time travel is introduced, players will wonder why they can't travel back in time to fix any mistakes they've made or conflicts they've sparked.
4 Major Villains Are All One-Dimensional Bigots
Broad, unsympathetic villains are acceptable in children's literature. However, since Hogwarts Legacy has been rated T, it may need to create more complex villains than Grindelwald and Umbridge to satisfy an older audience. One-dimensional depictions of bigotry often leave out the most insidious nature of real bigotry.
Just because a character isn't trying to spearhead genocide doesn't mean they aren't dangerous or governed by unconscious prejudice. Hogwarts Legacy should either provide a more nuanced depiction of this real-world issue or exchange Harry Potter's full-blood supremacists for something new.
3 Harry Potter's Goblins Are Offensive Stereotypes
Since its initial release, Harry Potter's depiction of goblins has faced some significant backlash. Critics of the series point to striking similarities between Rowling's goblins and antisemitic stereotypes. Worse still, goblins are one of several races openly oppressed by wizards in the series, a problem no character seems to take issue with.
Hogwarts Legacy has already announced that its plot will center around a goblin rebellion, making this an especially poignant controversy for the developers to navigate. The Legacy team will need to put some serious thought into fixing the books' mistakes with goblins if they want to avoid creating a flatly offensive game.
2 Harry Potter Suffers From A Concerning Lack Of Diversity
In this time and age, viewers deem it very important to see proper representation in media. Whether it is through good racial representation or a healthy portrayal of LGBTQ+ characters, projects without good character development in this area barely make it.
Hogwarts Legacy is already in the middle of a controversy due to J.K. Rowling's comments about the trans community. The game needs to try its best to make it up for the author's bigotry. It could do this by offering diverse characters in the game's narrative as well as the opportunity for players to completely personalize their character.
1 Most Wizards Are Okay With Slavery
Except for Hermione Granger, almost every character in Harry Potter is perfectly okay with the enslavement of house elves in their world. Worse still, the argument "good" characters like Hagrid use in favor of elf slavery is that the elves enjoy being enslaved, making him sound like a Confederate apologist at best.
Hogwarts Legacy is already drawing negative attention and planned boycotts for the way it's using goblins. Portkey Games needs to tread carefully around the similarly racialized topic of house elves. Even if the game surprises fans by depicting the goblin rebellion in a positive light, players shouldn't be expected to be okay with house-elf enslavement. This mistake could easily overshadow anything else the game does right.