A major gameplay trailer forHogwarts Legacyhas been revealed showing off the game ahead of its release later this year. The game is seemingly taking inspiration more from theHarry Potterbooks than the films inredesigning its own version of the Hogwarts castle. Likely this is to make it more explorable for players, but also because the films never did have a consistent layout for the castle. Some elements are clearly taken from the films however, such as the designs of the Great Hall and the castle’s largest tower, along with the films’ iconic soundtrack.
The in-universe laws for witches and wizards to follow were something that stayed consistent across both the books and films. But it appears thatHogwarts Legacyas an open-world RPG is going to give players the option to break these laws.
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As with any fiction that introduces magic as a key element, the rules of theHarry Potteruniverse can be a bit confusing at times. But the world mostly holds together in a consistently inconsistent “it’s magic” sort of way. In fact, the only hard and fast rule for witches and wizards that is stated repeatedly in the books is that three unforgivable spells are strictly forbidden. The foremost of these spells, the killing curse, is a major plot point in the story ofHarry Potterand is quite brazenly shown off as usable in theHogwarts Legacygameplay trailer.
The spell is shown in use while the trailer hints at a mechanic that tracks the player character’s moral alignment based on which quests or locations they explore. This could be a mechanic similar to the lightside/darksidechoices found inKnights of the Old Republic. It would appear that consistently making evil choices will eventually bring the player to learning the killing curse.
Iconic though this spell is to the series, it is unlikely the gamewill allow the player’s own custom Hogwarts studentto wield it freely in the game’s world like the other less deadly spells. The way that this curse is built up in theHarry Potterbooks means that no spin-off story would use it lightly. What was seen in the gameplay reveal could be the end of a major battle or quest line, perhaps even the main story line, and the player character may have no choice but to use it.
Trailers and gameplay reveals for games do have a history of giving away more than they are supposed to. This is often the case withNintendo games whose trailers contained spoilersthat have huge fan bases that will pick apart every frame looking for details. Perhaps the killing curse shown in theHogwarts Legacytrailer is partly a spoiler, rather than a gameplay feature players can expect to use regularly.
Hogwarts Legacyis coming Holiday 2022 to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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