Letters to Hogwarts are making their way around the world, inviting fans of the Harry Potter franchise to visit the magical school for a brand-new adventure. Hogwarts Legacy will give fans a fresh experience in the Wizarding World that will let them live out the magical fantasies and dreams they've had since reading the first words or watching the first scenes of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Hogwarts Legacy looks to take everything fans love about the franchise — from attending classes to picking their wands and casting magical spells — and turns it all into a fantastic open world game. Fans and gamers will get a chance to experience the wondrous magic of Hogwarts on February 22nd, 2023 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series consoles, but last-gen owners will have to wait until April.
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10 Hogwarts Legacy Includes A Brand-New Story Set In The Late 1800s
The Harry Potter saga of movies covered the more current era of the wizarding world, and the Fantastic Beasts movies took fans back into the 1920s. Hogwarts Legacy goes back even farther in time to the late 1800s, giving fans a glimpse at what the world of magic was like before the turn of the century.
Hogwarts Legacy's story follows the player's character as they join Hogwarts late in their academic career, discovering that they hold the key to an ancient magic. On their journey, players must choose whether to protect that magical secret or give in to it and embrace the dark, mystical magic.
9 Players Will Make Decisions That Guide Their Character's Morality
Plenty of role-playing games let players make decisions throughout the story that help guide the story towards varied endings. While Hogwarts Legacy won't directly have players making plot choices, the way they act towards other characters on their adventures, and which spells and curses they choose to use will dictate what type of wizard they will be at the end of the game.
Depending on these choices throughout Hogwarts Legacy, there are at least two endings that players can achieve, seemingly a good or bad ending. Choosing to learn and use the Unforgivable Curses will give players a leg up in combat, but will lead them down a darker path.
8 Players Can Discover The Secrets Within Hogwarts And Explore Other Familiar Locations
As a student of Hogwarts, players will explore the school, visiting familiar locations like the Great Hall, each House's common room, Clock Tower, and numerous classrooms familiar to fans. There are secrets to uncover and, should any witch or wizard wish to break curfew, the castle can be explored at night as well.
Exploration isn't limited to the castle, however, as players can adventure well beyond those magic walls into places like the Forbidden Forest, Gringotts Bank, and Hosgmeade Village, just to name a few. There are also dungeons and hidden areas to uncover, offering rewards and enemies to face.
7 Hogwarts Legacy Features Plenty Of Challenging And Familiar Enemies
There are a wide variety of enemies that players will face off against that include trolls, goblins, and enemy wizards. There will also be wild magical beasts that players come across on their adventure in the massive open world, and they will provide a quite a challenge as they range from giant fire-breathing dragons to creepy crawly giant spiders.
While the majority of Hogwarts Legacy's combat will come from quests, there is a secret dueling club inside Hogwarts where players can practice their spells and combat skills against training dummies and other students. These skills will need to be honed and leveled up in order to emerge success against other powerful witches, wizards, and creatures.
6 Players Can Ride Hippogriffs, Thestrals, And Flying Brooms
Hogwarts Legacy offers players a massive world of exploration that expands well beyond the walls of the prestigious magical school. No wizard will want to walk everywhere, so there are mounts, and of course a broom, that players can use to traverse the world.
The broom is the standard mode, and while there won't be Quidditch matches to play, Hogwarts Legacy presents races and obstacle courses to conquer. As players encounter creatures, they can tame them and even make them a mount. These creatures include Hippogriffs, Thestrals, and Graphorns.
5 Hogwarts Legacy's Room Of Requirement Gives Players A Place To Craft And Harvest
While each House in Hogwarts has a common room and dorm, which the player can visit, the Room of Requirement acts like a home base for the player. The Room of Requirement is a secret room in the halls of Hogwarts that reveals itself to any wizard in need.
In the game, the Room will sense what players need and give it to them, meaning if they are low on specific items or materials, the room will provide them. In here, players can also brew potions, grow plants, and even craft upgrades to gear. The Room of Requirement can even be customized through its own architecture and furniture.
4 Players Can Attend Classes To Learn Spells, Mix Potions, Increase Abilities, And More
The story of Hogwarts Legacy follows the player entering the school of witchcraft and wizardry late, joining up in the fifth year of academia. Players will attend classes not only because of the story, but so they can learn new spells, charms, potions, and herbology remedies. Classes like Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic, and Charms, all feature interesting and colorful professors.
These classes are mainline objectives and side objectives that add to the story and help players increase their magic capabilities. For any fan who wished they could attend the magical classes they read about or watched, this is as close to the real thing as it gets.
3 Hogwarts Legacy Lets Players Rescue And Nurture Magical Beasts
There are plenty of fantastic beasts wandering the wizarding world, and Hogwarts Legacy is giving players ample opportunities to get to know them better. As players encounter these strange and wonderful creatures, they can rescue them, transporting them to the different Vivariums in the Room of Requirement.
Here, the player can heal, feed, pet, and even tame certain creatures to be mounts in the open world. These Vivariums are customizable with items to suit each creature and the player's own tastes. The beasts players come across will be new or familiar ones, having been seen throughout both Fantastic Beasts and Harry Potter series' of movies.
2 There Is Plenty Of Character Customization From Wands To Wardrobes
The character customization options of Hogwarts Legacy are fairly extensive from the initial character creation — hair, skin, facial features etc. — to the boundless amount of wardrobe accessories players will unlock, find, and buy from shops. At the beginning of the game, players will get to choose their wand, or have the wand choose them, and get sorted into a Hogwarts House.
By linking up their WB Games account to their Wizarding World account, players will be able to bring in their Hogwarts House and custom wand. They will also be able to change those during Hogwarts Legacy, along with some cosmetic bonuses like robes and a mask.
1 Hogwarts Legacy Allows Players To Cast Familiar Spells And Dark Magic Curses
Hogwarts Legacy includes over 20 different spells to cast in combat and exploration. Some spells will be used to solve puzzles or reveal hidden passages, while most will help dispatch enemies. Fans will see familiar spells like Expelliarmus the disarming spell, Accio the summoning charm, Protego the shield charm, and Lumos the light spell, among many others.
There are also the three unforgivable curses included in Hogwarts Legacy, giving players the chance to Avada Kedavra their enemies away. Using this dark magic will influence the player, leading them to become more of an evil wizard as they lean into that darkness.